MK brought her two children ages 5 and 2 into the emergency

M.K. brought her two children, ages 5 and 2, into the emergency room of the hospital at about 4 p.m. because they had gotten into the medicine cabinet and eaten a bottle of children\'s aspirin. Neither the number of the tablets in the bottle nor the number that each had ingested was known. The mother was quite certain that the pills had been ingested within the hour.

Urine from each child was available and a rapid test performed with chromogenic assay. The older child was not considered to be in danger, but the younger one had a gastric lavage. The results were 22 mg percent for the older child and 36 mg percent for the younger, who was admitted to the pediatric unit.

What range is considered normal? Danger?

What is the name of the chromogenic assay known as?

Are most drugs excreted as they are given or do they undergo chemical change in the body?

Solution

A range of 2 to 30 mg/dL is considered normal.Usually 2-10 mg/dL is known as the therapeutic level and 10-30 mg/dL is known as anti-inflammatory level.A level greater than 30 mg/dL is considered to be toxic and thus dangerous.

The name of the chromogenic assay is Trinder spot assay.This assay is used as a diagnosis tool to determine the the levels of salicyclic acid.Aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid.So, the amount of aspirin intake by the children can be found out by the amount of salicylic acid present in urine.The test uses Trinder reagent i.e 10% pre mixed solution of ferric chloride 1 ml of which when added to 1 ml of urine in a test tube.If the color of urine changes blue or purple the test is positive.From the amount of color produced, the amount of salicylic acid and hence the amount of aspirin ingested can be determined.

While some drugs are excreted as they are given ,some drugs do undergo chemical change in the body.It is in the liver that these changes mainly take place.There are some fat soluble drugs that are converted to water soluble drugs in the liver so that they can be excreted by the kidney.