Metronidazole infusion confusion!

RE: Metronidazole infusion confusion!

Louise Northway VNCertECC NCert(Anaesth) RVN — Thu, 20 Oct 2016 15:00:14 GMT

The mnz bags we have say they contain 100ml... but they actually contain 110ml... next time try drawing it up into syringes to see... you may find the same as what we did!

RE: Metronidazole infusion confusion!

Rachael_24 — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 12:59:58 GMT

I use a syringe driver with an extension set.

I draw up the required amount of metronidazole and use this to prime the extension set before putting it into the syringe driver. Once the syringe is empty I then attach a syringe of saline to run in whatever metronidazole is left in the extension set.

RE: Metronidazole infusion confusion!

Julie-Anne Wilson — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 20:14:19 GMT

Syringe driver? They do tend to be easier and your lines for connecting syringe to catheter are usually only 2mls so not as much as wastage as a normal giving set.

RE: Metronidazole infusion confusion!

emmaj_davy — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 08:29:28 GMT

That's what I thought, its such a pain to administer, any better ideas to administer it?

RE: Metronidazole infusion confusion!

Celine — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 08:23:13 GMT

I think at the end of the day, if you are measuring out the amount to be given beforehand and only attaching that amount to the giving set, then it will deliver either way.

IE: if you attach a bag of 60ml Metro to a giving set that is already primed with hartmans then ask the pump to deliver the 60ml you'll have 16ml Metro left in the giving set and that will be taken care of by the hartmanns that you'll attach as normal afterwards (assuming your animal is on IVFT anyway?) Obviously if your drip rate is considerably slower than the rate the metro is given it won't deliver your entire dose within your 30 min timeframe, not ideal but unsure if it's the end of the world.

If you attach your 60ml bag of metro to a set, then prime with metro and try to deliver 60ml you'll get your fluid pump screaming because it won't be able to deliver the 60ml without pulling air into the giving set, so you'd have to stop it at that point and reattach your Hartmanns to complete a delivery of a 60ml volume.

Either way, you will deliver your true amount. The problem lies if you haven't premeasured your amount and just attach a full bag of metro, ask the machine to deliver 60ml and then remove the metro bag and reattach hartmans after it has delivered 60ml....it won't have given the full dose.

Well done on realising though!!

RE: Metronidazole infusion confusion!

Julie-Anne Wilson — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 18:41:30 GMT

If the giving set was primed with Hartmanns then yeah, the amount infused was the set amount minus the gving set amount but reattaching the line to a fluid bag and running it would flush the remaining Metronidazole out of the line therefore giving the correct amount.

If you primed the line with Metronidazole and set it for the required amount and then ran more fluids through it, you would be giving 16mls too much Metronidazole.

At least that's the way my brain is working it out.