Fent 125… I Mean 12mcg Patch

Hey there 👋🏻

The other day I made a post about dosing the fentanyl 12mcg patch. Technically, I should really be calling it the fentanyl 12mcg/hr patch.

But did you know it doesn’t actually deliver 12mcg per hour?

If you look at the package insert, you’ll see two asterisks next to the 12mcg dose:

Source: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2005/19813s039lbl.pdf

Nominal delivery rate is 12.5 mcg/hr.

That’s right! The fentanyl 12mcg patch actually delivers 12.5mcg/hr.

The reason the 0.5 is dropped is for safety. If a fentanyl 12.5mcg/hr patch were mistaken for 125mcg/hr, that’s not just a simple error.

It’s a fatal one.

Now here’s the food for thought—does 12.5mcg/hr make a whole lot of difference compared to 12mcg/hr therapeutically? Let me know what you think in the comments.

See you next time,

SP