Overview
A patient weighing approximately 30 pounds ingested an antinausea medicine at home. By the time the patient was brought into the hospital, you’re informed of how many pills they took, what dosage the pills were and how long ago they ingested them (see assignment sheet for your patient specifics!). After researching the specific drug on the Physicians Desk Reference website, you find and record the absorption half life and elimination half-life. Based on the patient’s weight you also estimate that the patient has 1.5 L of blood. As a physician, your main concern is the patient’s blood (or plasma) drug concentration levels. For this specific drug, 25 mg/L is toxic and 50 mg/L is lethal for blood plasma concentrations. Build a model that shows the gastrointestinal, blood, and excreted amounts of the drug based on how much of the drug was initially ingested and how long ago (again, see the assignment sheet). Once you’ve constructed the model, see the data analysis assignment this week to assess the patient’s current level of danger upon hospital admission and to brainstorm a plan of action.
This assignment will require active use of your excel. Each time you make an adjustment, be sure to screenshot the graph made and paste it here (otherwise as you change values in your excel, your graphs will auto update).
1. At the time of admission to the hospital, in your professional opinion, is your patient in danger?
2. How many hours after ingestion does your patient reach toxic blood concentration level?
3. How many hours after ingestion does your patient reach lethal blood concentration level?
Methods of drug overdose treatment include oral charcoal treatment and extracorporeal blood filtering treatment. The charcoal treatment is estimated to increase the rate of excretion by a factor of 2 while the extracorporeal blood filtering treatment, albeit being a much riskier procedure, is estimated to increase the rate of excretion by a factor of 6. Copy and paste graph(s) below comparing the two treatments and what effect they would have on your patient’s blood plasma drug concentration levels.
4. As a physician, which treatment, if any, do you recommend for your patient?
5. If untreated, how many hours after ingestion does your patient’s blood concentration levels fall back below the toxic threshold? How many hours after ingestion until the drug is essentially 100% excreted (less than 0.1% of original ingested amount remains in the blood)? Include graph(s).
6. According to the plan of action you have chosen in question 4, at what time (after ingestion) will the patient’s blood concentration levels fall back below the toxic threshold? How many hours after ingestion until the drug is essentially 100% excreted (less than 0.1% of original ingested amount remains in the blood)? Include graph(s).