dosing weight


dosing weight

The body weight used for calculating the appropriate dosage of a medication for those whose weight exceeds the usual average range. Weight-based dosing is used to correct for different drug distributions and pharmacodynamics in overweight or obese patients.

CAUTION!

Obese patients metabolize fat-soluble medications differently from lean patients, and the differences may result in clinically important undermedication or overmedication. One formula used to calculate a safe weight-based dosage for obese patients depends on the total body weight (TBW) and ideal body weight (IBW) as follows: dosing weight = (0.3)(TBW–IBW) + IBW.See also: weight