TY - JOUR T1 - Drug formulations that require less than 0.1 mL of stock solution to prepare doses for infants and children JF - Canadian Medical Association Journal JO - CMAJ SP - E246 LP - E248 DO - 10.1503/cmaj.100467 VL - 183 IS - 4 AU - Navjeet Uppal AU - Baseer Yasseen AU - Winnie Seto AU - Christopher S. Parshuram Y1 - 2011/03/08 UR - http://www.cmaj.ca/content/183/4/E246.abstract N2 - Intravenous doses of medications require formulations that permit accurate preparation and administration. Current equipment does not permit accurate measurement of volumes less than 0.1 mL. In a study of four hypothetical standard pediatric patients, we found that 28 common medications required less than 0.1 mL of available formulation to prepare the dose. In a clinical study of actual use in a pediatric intensive care unit (ICU), 5245 (7.4%) of 71 218 intravenous doses required preparation from less than 0.1 mL of stock solution. For 28.5% of the 1531 ICU admissions, at least one dose was prepared from a volume of less than 0.1 mL. Our findings identify a substantial source of dosing error. Correction will require revision of preparation methods, regulatory requirements and manufacturing practices. ER -