GB2461013A

GB2461013A - Vessel with gradations marked thereon relating to a physical characteristic of a patient

Info

Publication number: GB2461013A
Application number: GB0724535A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Asrar Rashid; Patrick Davies
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2007-12-18
Filing date: 2007-12-18
Publication date: 2009-12-23
Also published as: GB0724535D0

Abstract

A vessel2, suitable for the administration of a drug to a human patient has gradations6marked thereon which relate to a physical characteristic7of a patient. The gradations6indicate to a user how much drug to administer depending on the characteristic. The gradations6may be specific for a particular drug3which may be marked on the vessel2. The vessel2may be colour-coded to match the colour of a vial from which the drug with which it is to be used is taken. The vessel2may have more than one scale indicative of different physical characteristics of a patient. The vessel2may have two scales where the zero point of one scale starts at a proximal end of the vessel and the zero point of the other scale starts at the distal end. The physical characteristic may be weight, height, body mass index or patient age.

Description

Gradated Dosing Vessel

FIELD OF INVENTION

The present invention relates to a vessel for the administration of a drug such as a syringe or pipette that has gradations (i.e. a scale) that facilitate the measurement of a pre-defined amount of drug, e.g. which can be in liquid form, according to at least one physical characteristic of the patient. The aim of this invention is to save time and to minimise the chance of error when administering drugs to patients of differing physical characteristics such as weight, body surface area or height. Saving time is especially important in the acute or emergency care scenario.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Medical or veterinary teams treat sick patients. Such patients have variable physical characteristics according to weight or volume or surface area. The provision of effective treatment or resuscitation during the first hour of treatment is vital in determining a successful outcome for the patient, human or non-human. During this hour (and at any point during a treatment regime), drugs can be administered.

Drugs need to be drawn up into syringes in an exact way according to exact physical characteristics, with the necessary safety checks being undertaken to avoid incorrect drug dosing or to prevent incorrect drug administration.

Further, certain drugs and formulations are used relatively infrequently and there is the propensity for drug errors as a result of incorrect formulation or dilution. This has resulted in patients being administered major drug overdoses; which at high doses are potentially harmful leading to serious morbidity and mortality. Likewise, there is a chance of administering therapeutically inactive underdo ses.

In order to save time, manufacturers have produced standard doses of drugs for adult patients which allow for instantaneous delivery of medication. However in animals and children there is significant dose variation and standardised syringes cannot be made for all possible patients. Moreover, standard drug doses assumes that patients are typically the same but with the increasing obesity crisis in the Western World, this is no longer true.

Also certain drugs are unstable and are therefore stored in vials with some drugs being refrigerated so that they must be drawn up as and when required. Consequently drug and patient characteristics can impinge on manufacturer's ability to have pre-filled syringes available to the clinical team.

Further, some drugs are used very infrequently by the user and there is particularly a propensity to drug errors. It would be desirable to alleviate the issues associated with inefficiencies in providing acute and emergency care.

The prior art suggests the use of weight gradations for the administration of oral medication for animals. However, the inventors have now realised that gradations showing a characteristic of a patient can be used in the administration of drugs, especially solutions of drugs intravenously, intramuscularly, intradermally, or subdermally.

Prior art (US 6764469 B2) has utilised the idea of using a variable colour coded indicator to allow the operator to give a predetermined amount of drug according to a specific colour range. In contrast, the present invention annotates the actual physical characteristics of the patient on the vessel. This is more beneficial as this allows the operator to determine the amount of drug that should be administered. The prior art colour coding makes certain assumptions about the physique of the end-user such as the relationship of height with weight (Broselow scale), which is prone to error, especially given that certain groups of patients are prone to vary significantly in their personal attributes from the mean; either being obese or lean.

The present inventors have surprisingly found that by using a vessel adapted to administer a drug to a patient, e.g. a syringe, which has gradations, i.e. a scale, which corresponds to a physical characteristic of that patient, such a vessel has several advantages over prior art vessels as it provides an increased level of efficiency and safety for drawing up drugs, e.g. for intravenous, intramuscular, intradermal or subdermal use.

SUMMARY OF THE II44VENTION

Thus, viewed from one aspect the invention provides a vessel suitable for the administration of a drug to a human or non-human patient, e.g. intravenously, intramuscularly, subcutaneously, buccally, sub-lingually or transdermally, having gradations marked thereon relating to a physical characteristic of a patient, e.g. the patient's weight, surface area, volume, age, body mass index, wherein said gradations show a user how much drug to administer depending upon said characteristic.

Viewed from another aspect the invention provides a vessel as hereinbefore defined comprising a drug.

Viewed from another aspect there is provided a method of administering a drug to a patient comprising: (i) obtaining a vessel as hereinbefore defined (ii) drawing into said vessel an amount of drug which corresponds to the value of a physical characteristic of said patient (iii) administering said amount of drug to said patient.

As used herein, the term "drug" is intended to cover any substance which a user might want to administer to a patient.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG 1 is a schematic cross section of the main embodiment of the invention FIG 2 is a schematic cross section of a pipette system with gradations.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Traditionally the process of drug administration requires the user to calculate the drug dosage that is required and to administer the same. For oral drugs this can be relatively straightforward with the user being given a whole or multiple of tablets.

However, the situation becomes more complex when the patient to which the drug is administered, be it human or non-human, differs significantly in terms of a particular physical characteristic, such as height, body surface area or in particular, weight. In this situation, for the administration of the correct dose of drug, a calculation is usually required which takes into consideration the physical characteristics of the patient.

Preferably, the physical characteristic that varies is the weight of the patient. The weight of the patient may be determined by weighing if possible. If this is not possible, on admission of the patient, their weight can be estimated by a visual inspection of the patient taking into account the age of the patient. A skilled doctor can estimate the weight of a patient with a reasonable degree of accuracy although it is of course preferably if an accurate determination of weight can be made through the use of scales or the like.

Once the weight of the patient is established, the operator administering a drug must calculate, according to the patient's weight, the required dosage and this must then be drawn up from an appropriate vial.

Traditionally this methodology may delay the administration of a drug to the patient.

This delay can be detrimental to the optimal treatment of patients, especially those who are acutely unwell. There is also the possibility of an incorrect calculation being made at this stage, especially under the pressure of an emergency.

The present invention offers a solution to this problem by provision of a vessel suitable for the administration of a drug to a patient, for example a syringe or a pipette that has gradated markings thereon. The vessel allows the drug preparer to suction a required aliquot of drug into a syringe in a quick and efficient manner. The gradation system on the vessel focuses on the physical characteristics of the patient, instead of the actual volume drawn up. Drawing up a volume corresponding to the shown relevant physical characteristic would correspond to the correct dose of that drug.

The vessel is designed to take out one step in the pathway to drug administration.

Specifically the step related to converting the physical characteristics to a definite dosage.

The use of pre-determined calculated syringes will entail a saving in cost for the operator in terms of time, financial cost, and minimising the risk of incorrect dosage calculations and incorrect type of drug administered.

The patient to whom the drug is administered man be human or non-human although preferably the patient is human. Embodiments of the invention are particularly useful if the patient is a child, elderly (e.g. at 65, preferably at least 70) or obese (e.g. with a body mass index of at least 30).

The physical characteristic of the patient to which the scale on the vessel relates can vary widely. Any characteristic that can be correlated to a drug dosage is possible although preferably that characteristic is physical characteristic such as height, body surface area or in particular, weight. The characteristic may also be a combination of these characteristics, e.g. body mass index.

Thus, a vessel of the invention may have a scale which corresponds to the weight of a patient in kilograms, grams, stones, or pounds. The vessel may have a scale that corresponds to the patient's height in centimetres, metres, feet, yards, or inches. A vessel of the invention may have a scale which corresponds to the BMI of the patient.

Other physical characteristics may also be utilised according to the requirement of the patient or the type of drug being administered.

Measuring the physical characteristic of the patient is trivial and will be readily achieved by the skilled person. Patients can be weighed, measured etc and an experienced physician can make accurate estimates of these parameters in the unlikely event that a physical characteristic of interest cannot be directly measured.

It will be appreciated that the gradations on the vessel may differ depending on the type of drug which they contain, with different drugs having different drug dosing regimens. It is desirable therefore that the vessel states for which drug it is to be used either on the vessel itself or on any packaging/instructions therefor. Preferably this is marked on the vessel itself to ensure that no mistakes can be made by the clinical team.

Where drugs are administered in different concentrations it will again be desirable to indicate to the user for what concentration of drug the vessel is to be used. Again, preferably this is marked on the vessel itself to ensure that no mistakes can be made by the clinical team.

It will be appreciated that the vessel of the invention could, in theory, be of any size or shape but preferably, the vessel is a conventional syringe or pipette, especially a syringe. Vessels of the invention will generally have a plunger at one end thereof and a nozzle at the other end thereof. The thickness of the barrel of such a vessel can of course vary as is well known in the art. Barrel thickness is used to vary the amount of material which the syringe will carry.

Whilst the vessel of the invention can be used to deliver drug in any form, e.g. liquid, semi-solid or solid form, ideally the drug will be in the form of a liquid. Such a liquid will usually be a solution or emulsion of the drug along with one or more conventional pharmaceutical excipients. Formulation of drugs in a form suitable for administration by the vessel of the invention, be it intravenously, intramuscularly, subcutaneously, buccally, sub-lingually or transdermally is well known to the skilled man.

The vessel of the invention may also be utilised to administer emergency oral medication to a patient although ideally the route of administration will not be oral.

In conventional use, the gradations on the vessel are used to measure specific aliquots of drug according to physical characteristics of the patient. This aliquot can be taken from any convenient source, e.g. a vial of the drug in appropriate concentration.

In one embodiment of the invention, rather than the user drawing into the vessel an amount of drug corresponding to the physical characteristic of the patient, the vessel of the invention can already contain a predetermined amount of drug sealed ready for use. The user need administer to the patient just the amount of drug required based on the scale on the vessel and, of course, the physical characteristic of the patient.

In this embodiment, the gradations on the vessel may read from zero at the plunger end to the maximum possible for that vessel at the nozzle end. In this way the user is not required to make a calculation before administration and just administers the amount of drug which corresponds to the physical characteristic of the patient.

In another embodiment, a vessel of the invention may have two scales, one oriented for convenient viewing when putting an amount of drug into the vessel, the other oriented for convenient viewing when administering an amount of drug to a patient i.e. where the zero point of one scale is located at the nozzle end of the vessel and the zero point of the other scale is located at the plunger end of the vessel.

Specific vessels of the invention could be colour coded, e.g. to specify which drug it is to carry. The vials from which the drug is drawn from could also be colour coded to match that of the vessel. In particular, the barrel of a syringe could be of a specified colour which can match the colour of the vial from which a certain medication will be drawn to minimize drug errors. Differing drugs can therefore having differing colour syringes.

The vessel of the invention can have an electronic suction system to enable the operator to suction a required aliquot of drug or could have a conventional manual plunger.

The vessel of the invention can be provided as a kit that contains, inter alia, specified drugs and/or specified implements depending on the specific disease process or situation that can require treatment.

Viewed from another aspect therefore the invention provides a kit comprising a vessel as hereinbefore described and a drug.

Infusion pumps can be programmed to accept the vessels of the invention.

It is also within the scope of the invention for a vessel to have more than set of gradations indicative of more than one physical characteristic of a patient, e.g. one scale for weight and one for body mass index. Preferably however, only one scale is present on a vessel of the invention.

Specifically in view of the reliance on weight, we describe a novel weight graded syringe system that will be useful in human or non-human patients.

Figure 1 shows an embodiment of the invention. A syringe (1) is displayed with a drug name (3), drug concentration (4), and a scale (6) printed clearly on the barrel (2).

The gradations on this example syringe are given in kilograms (7). When a volume of fluid equalling the patient's weight has been drawn up into the syringe, this equals the correct dose for the patient.

The user would, after weighing the patient (or estimating the weight), draw up a volume corresponding to the weight as shown on the syringe barrel. The gradations on the syringe have been predetermined to be exactly at the volume which would give the correct dose for each weight.

The user would then administer to the patient the appropriate dose of drug.

In another embodiment of the invention Figure 2 a gradation inset that represents physical characteristics of the patient (13) is placed on to a vessel that has the function of a pipette (11). The topmost part of the pipette (11) has a bulb (12) which the user can use to aspirate aliquots of solution from the pipette entry point (8) into the body of the pipette. The pipette can have the function to measure specific types of drugs such which can be represented on the pipette 9 according to specific dilutions of drug (10).

Alternatively generic pipette can be designed to be used to measure any aliquot of drug according to specific dosage amounts of drug, such as milligram, micrograms or nanogram of drug.

Claims

Claims 1. A vessel suitable for the administration of a drug to a human or non-human patient, having gradations marked thereon relating to a physical characteristic of the patient, wherein said gradations indicate to a user how much drug to administer depending upon said characteristic.
2. A vessel as claimed in claim 1 wherein said gradations are specific for a particular drug.
3. A vessel as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2, wherein said drug is in the form of at least one a liquid.
4. A vessel as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the vessel has the name of the drug with which it should be used marked thereon.
5. A vessel as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the vessel has the concentration of the drug with which it should be used marked thereon.
6. A vessel as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the vessel and/or a barrel thereof is colour coded to match the colour of a vial from which the drug with which it is to be used is taken.
7. A vessel as claimed in any preceding claim having an electronic suction system to enable the operator to suction a required aliquot of drug.
8. A vessel as claimed in any preceding claim adapted to administer emergency oral medication to a patient.
9. A vessel as claimed in any preceding claim which contains a predetermined amount of drug.
10. A vessel as claimed in claim 9 having a nozzle and a plunger wherein said the gradations on said vessel start at a plunger end of the vessel.
11. A vessel as claimed in any preceding claim having more than one scale indicative of different physical characteristics of the patient.
12. A vessel as claimed in any preceding claim, having two scales where the zero point of one scale is located at the nozzle end of the vessel and the zero point of the other scale is located at the plunger end of the vessel
13. A vessel as claimed in any preceding claim being a syringe or pipette.
14. A vessel as claimed in any preceding claim, can be used to measure specific aliquots of any drug according to a given dosage amount in milligrams, micrograms or nanograms.
15. A vessel as claimed in any preceding claim can be labelled for the use of specific types of drug; with said labelling containing specific names of drugs or can be of a certain colour or colours or may contain a certain label or mark that identifies the vessel by the user for a certain drug or family of drugs.
16. A vessel as claimed in any preceding claim being adapted to allow administration of said drug intravenously, intramuscularly, subcutaneously, buccally, sub-lingually or transdermally,
17. A vessel as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said physical characteristic is weight, surface area, height, body mass index or patient age.
18. A kit comprising a vessel as claimed in any preceding claim and a specified drug for said vessel.
19. A vessel substantially as herein described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
20. A method of administering a drug to a patient comprising: obtaining a vessel as hereinbefore defined drawing into said vessel an amount of drug which corresponds to the value of a physical characteristic of said patient administering said amount of drug to said patient.