Body Surface Area (BSA) Calculator
Height and weight in, body surface area out, from the Mosteller formula.
Body surface area (Mosteller)
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Common questions
What is body surface area?
The total area of the skin, in square metres. Medicine uses it to scale some drug doses (notably chemotherapy) and to index measures such as cardiac output.
Which formula is used?
Mosteller (NEJM, 1987): BSA (m²) = √(height in cm × weight in kg ÷ 3600).
What is a typical BSA?
For example, 170 cm and 70 kg gives about 1.82 m² with Mosteller. Use your clinician's figure for any dosing; this page is for information.
How it's computed
BSA = √(cm × kg ÷ 3600), shown to two decimals. 1 in = 2.54 cm, 1 kg = 2.2046 lb.
Sources
- Mosteller RD. Simplified calculation of body-surface area. N Engl J Med. 1987;317(17):1098. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov