Why the study?
Does rectal administration of atropine achieve comparable plasma concentrations to intramuscular administration in children?
Does rectal administration of atropine achieve comparable plasma concentrations to intramuscular administration in children?
Rectal administration of atropine in children results in substantially lower and delayed peak plasma concentrations compared to intramuscular administration.
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Rectal atropine yields lower, delayed exposure than intramuscular in children; leaves open whether adjusted dosing merits further study.
The rectal administration of the premedication for children is often preferred in order to minimise discomfort. The appropriate dose of atropine when rectally administered is poorly documented. In this study six children weighing between 7.5 and 41 kg were given 0.02 mg atropine sulphate/kg rectally and four children were given the same doses intramuscularly. Plasma concentrations of atropine were analysed at several intervals after administration by a modified mass fragmentographic method accurate to 0.1 ng/ml. Peak plasma concentration of atropine, reached after 15 minutes, was 0.7 ng/ml, compared with 2.40 ng/ml reached after 5 minutes for the intramuscular route. The relation between intramuscular and rectal peak concentration was 3.2:1.
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Olsson et al. (1983) studied this question.
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