What special advice would you give to nursing staff/physicians for safe parenteral administration of the following drugs to patients? List the advice with reference to: administration method and rate, compatibility, observations needed, other relevant measures in drug administration. (3 marks each)

a) fat emulsion IV infusion for TPN

b) Iron Dextran IM injection

c) Infliximab IV infusion

d) Colloidal Amphotericin B IV infusion

e) Paliperidone IM injection (invega Sustenna®)

My comment:

My opinion is that only an advanced clinically trained pharmacist working in a hospital setting in the US/Canada would have been able to answer all the parts of this question fully. Each part is worth 3 marks, indicating that the examiner is only looking for key points as opposed to a detailed profile of each drug. This is what I have aimed to do here. Note the question only asks for advise related to drug administration, so I do not detail long term side effects. The examiner may only require some of the points I have listed out. I have also included a brief introduction and the risk rating of each product as per the Injectable Drugs Guide to give more context to each drug. References used: injectable Drugs Guide and the BNF.

Parenteral administration refers to injection of drug into the body, and includes IM, SC and IV.