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Metric system for medication doses
Even in the United States where the metric system is not used, the medical doses are usually expressed in metric system. The dose of Amoxicillin for example is expressed as milligrams (mgs) all over the world including the United States. Doses of most of the medications are based on weight of the patient. The dosage for children is much less than the dosage for adults, because the weight of a child usually is much lower than the weight of an adult. Most of the drug doses are measured in milligrams, but some of the medications may be measured in micrograms, and on the other end some other types of medications may be measured in grams. There are several medications, which are measured as international units and are designated as IU. An IU is an internationally standardized measure of biological activity or potency based on quantitative measurements rather than weight and is used when the preparation is not an exact chemical formula or when various related substances have the same type of biological effect. Since IU is based on biological activity, the weight of two drugs with same IU may vary greatly depending on the biological activity and potency. Generally speaking, most of the drugs will have a standardized number of IU per milligram weight of drug, so it is possible to convert from IU to mg. If there are various preparations of the drug available, IU is a more appropriate measure of how much drug you are getting than milligrams.
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