Calibration and use of syringe pumps

There are several types of infusion instruments used for drug delivery, e.g. syringe pumps and infusion pumps, with different capacities according to their use and applied therapeutic. In order to ensure the traceability of these flow and volume measuring equipment is necessary to use suitable calibration methods and standards. Current calibration services of microflow do not go below 16 μL/min (4 % uncertainty), whereas the lowest comparison between primary standards has been of 100 mL/min, hence, below the latter flow rate, the primary standards have not been validated. Also there are several influence factors in the use of drug delivery devices that are not yet studied in detail. Therefore, a need for the development of a research project in the scope of the EMRP - European Metrology Research Programme, was identified. In order to validate the microflow gravimetric calibration method, developed at the Volume Laboratory of the Portuguese Institute for Quality in the scope of the participation in the EMRP project – Metrology for drug delivery (MeDD), several infusion instruments supplied by the Hospital Garcia de Orta/ Neonatology Service were tested at different volumes and rates. From the obtained results, it can be implemented several improvements for the use and calibration procedures