In trying to summarize types of medicine exposure at ICU, what would be a reasonable method to quantify/describe exposure to catecholamines? The administration rate can change many times during ICU stay and I seek to quantify this for statistical analysis. Any advice or experience with this quantification problem?
Hi Catherine,
I assume that your ICU is neurological because of your research field. Grouping diagnostic is the first thing i would do. You can use high and low dosing using an arbitrary threshold and you can do it by time of exposure. I would only do both if you have a large "n". It is very hard to keep the dose sustained all day long, but it is easier to seek the total amount used during the staying in the ICU using the billing pharmacy reports for that day. This would give you an average of usage.
Hope this helps you
Hi Catherine:
You can use a catecholamine infusion dose (ug/K/min) at time intervals and build up a nice curve which can resemble a sort of "dose". However, there are more formal ways to address this issue. Please see:
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation/Guidances/ucm072109.pdf
http://www.nature.com.ezproxy.puc.cl/clpt/journal/v79/n2/pdf/clpt2006104a.pdf (poster #69)
Regards
r
In my current work, I put the percentage difference between patient who received the drug, and the total dose given during the period of interest
best wishes on your work
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