The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 275 No 7378 p681
3 December 2005

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Intramuscular injections may not always be successful

As much as 68 per cent of patients may not be successfully receiving drugs delivered by intramuscular injection into the buttocks, a study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago, Illinois, this week suggests.

Researchers added an air bubble to the injections of 50 patients scheduled to receive an intramuscular medicine and to undergo computed tomography. Injections were into the upper outer quadrant of the buttocks. Analysis of the bubbles’ location on the scans showed that only 32 per cent of the patients received a successful intramuscular injection. And, although the success rate among men was 56 per cent, among women it was 8 per cent.

“Our study has demonstrated that a majority of people, especially women, are not getting the proper dosage from injections to the buttocks,” said lead author Victoria Chan, Adelaide and Meath Hospital in Dublin. “We have identified a new problem related, in part, to the increasing amount of fat in patients’ buttocks,” she added. “There is no question that obesity is the underlying cause.”