Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective

Microgram

Unit of mass, 1 millionth of a gram From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Microgram
Remove ads

In the metric system, a microgram or microgramme is a unit of mass equal to one millionth (1×10−6) of a gram. Two different abbreviations are commonly used. The International System of Units (SI) uses μg, where the SI prefix "micro-" is represented by the Greek letter μ (mu). However, mcg is preferred for medical information in the United States (US) and United Kingdom. A third abbreviation, the Greek letter γ (gamma), is no longer recommended.[1]

Quick Facts General information, Unit system ...

The US Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommend that mcg should be used, rather than μg, when communicating medical information.[2] This is due to the risk that μ might be misread as m, for "milli-", which is equal to one thousandth (1×10−3). Such a misreading could result in a thousandfold overdose of a drug or medicine. However, mcg is also the symbol for a the obsolete unit millicentigram, derived from the centimetre–gram–second system of units and equal to10 μg.

Remove ads

Typography

Usually, a sequence of the Unicode code point U+03BC μ GREEK SMALL LETTER MU followed by the Latin letter U+0067 g LATIN SMALL LETTER G should be used. However, if μ is not available it may be represented with U+0075 u LATIN SMALL LETTER U, U+0055 U LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U or the legacy Unicode symbol U+00B5 µ MICRO SIGN. In Chinese, Japanese and Korean writing a fullwidth version U+338D SQUARE MU G should be used.[3]

Remove ads

See also

References

Loading related searches...

Wikiwand - on

Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.

Remove ads