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Calculator · Which weight a dose should use
Ideal and adjusted body weight
Devine ideal body weight, and the adjusted weight used when someone is more than 20% above it. Which one a drug wants is a property of the DRUG — gentamicin and vancomycin do not agree, and neither is simply "use their weight".
Before you use it
Devine assumes a height above 5 feet and extrapolates badly below it — in a short adult the ideal weight it returns can be implausibly low, so sense-check it. This screen tells you what the weights ARE; it does not tell you which one your drug wants. Gentamicin uses adjusted weight when obese; vancomycin loading uses ACTUAL body weight; low-molecular-weight heparin is by actual weight with caps. Check the drug, not the habit.
Source: Devine 1974; UK aminoglycoside and glycopeptide dosing practice
Checked, and shown
Every threshold on this page was checked against its primary source by a practising doctor. Here is what that involved, and what it found.