About 160 children go to a hospital emergency room every day as a result of acci
ID: 123895 • Letter: A
Question
About 160 children go to a hospital emergency room every day as a result of accidental medicine overdose. In 2013, over 60,000 young children were seen in ERs across the country after ingesting medicines that adults left in easily accessible places. In this project, you are going to study the case of a 3-year old child that has just been brought into the ER with an apparent accidental overdose on allergy medicine. One hour before arriving at the ER, the child ingested 12 25-mg tablets of an over the counter allergy medicine.
Like most oral drugs, the allergy medicine is absorbed into the bloodstream at a rate proportional to the amount present in the gastrointestinal tract (stomach and intestines) and is eliminated from the bloodstream at a rate proportional to the amount present in the bloodstream. A quick reference check of the Physician’s Desk Reference (PDR) reveals that the allergy medicine ingested by the child has an absorption half-life of 4 hours and an elimination half-life of 5 hours. A blood level concentration of 17 mg/L or more of the drug is seriously toxic and a concentration of 25 mg/L or more of the drug is fatal. For this patient’s size and weight, you estimate that he has approximately 3L of blood in his body. You also determine that because of the 1 hour delay, the pills have already passed from the child’s stomach to his intestines.
Determine the amount of allergy medicine in the child’s bloodstream over several hours. Graph your results. Using your model, answer the following questions: • Does the amount of allergy medicine in his bloodstream ever reach a lethal level for the child? If so, after how many hours? How many hours after the child’s admission to the hospital does this occur? • Mark the lethal level and the time at which it occurs on your graph. • After how many hours does the amount of allergy medicine in the child’s blood reach a seriously toxic level? How long before or after his hospital admission does this occur? • Mark the toxic level and the time at which it occurs on your graph.
Explanation / Answer
Answer: Concentration of a drug in the blood stream is calculated by following formula
C(t) = Co*e^-rt where Ct is the conc of drug at the time t, Co is the conc of drug at the time of given, r>0 is constantly removal of drug from the blood stream
Since child took 12 tablets of 25mg conc so Co = 300 mg intial concentration
so for e.g: C(t) = 300mg * e^(-1/5)*5 => C(t) = 110.36 mg conc be present in blood stream.
below is the data obtained by applying avove formula
Time (hr) Ct (mg)
1 22.07 mg (toxic)
2 44.14 mg (lethal)
3 66.21 mg (lethal)
4 88.29 mg (lethal)
5 110.36 mg
10 220.72 mg
15 331.09 mg
1) Yes during the initial 5 hours the amount of drug in bloodstream is lethal for the child.
2) After 2 hours of child admission his doses conc in the bloodstream was fatal.
3) After 1 hour his drug levels were toxic.
4)During the time of hospital administration already 1 hour was over so he was in toxic state condition.
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