Palliative Care

Question 1

How to convert oral morphine to SC diamorphine?

Answer 1

Diamorphine SC & IV is 3x stronger than oral morphine

So divide total daily dose of oral morphine by 3 if converting to subcut diamorphine

Question 2

How do you convert oral morphine to subcut morphine?

Answer 2

Half the dose

e.g if moving to syringe driver (hence subcut morphine) then if on 120mg oral morphine in total per 24 hrs then = 60mg/24 hrs subcut morphine