In physiology and medicine, the body surface area (BSA) is the measured or calculated surface of a human body. For many clinical purposes BSA is a better indicator of metabolic mass than body weight because it is less affected by abnormal adipose mass. Nevertheless, there have been several important critiques of the use of BSA in determining the dosage of medications with a narrow therapeutic index like many chemotherapy medications. Typically there is a 4-10 fold variation in cytotoxic drug clearance between individuals due to differing activity of drug elimination processes related to genetic and environmental factors. This can lead to significant overdosing and even more perniciously to underdosing (and increased risk of cancer recurrence). It is also thought to be a distorting factor in Phase I and II trials that may result in potentially helpful medications being prematurely rejected. The trend to personalized medicine is one approach to counter this weakness. Estimation of BSA is simpler than many measures of volume.
Read more about Body Surface Area: Uses, Calculation, Average Values
Famous quotes containing the words body, surface and/or area:
“Do but consider this small dust, here running in the glass,
By atoms moved.
Could you believe that this the body was
Of one that loved?
And in his mistress’ flame playing like a fly,
Turned to cinders by her eye?
Yes, and in death as life unblest,
To have’t expressed,
Even ashes of lovers find no rest.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
“We tend to be so bombarded with information, and we move so quickly, that there’s a tendency to treat everything on the surface level and process things quickly. This is antithetical to the kind of openness and perception you have to have to be receptive to poetry. ... poetry seems to exist in a parallel universe outside daily life in America.”
—Rita Dove (b. 1952)
“Prestige is the shadow of money and power. Where these are, there it is. Like the national market for soap or automobiles and the enlarged arena of federal power, the national cash-in area for prestige has grown, slowly being consolidated into a truly national system.”
—C. Wright Mills (1916–1962)