Microgram
{{Short description|Unit of mass, 1 millionth of a gram}}
{{Hatnote|"μg" and "ΜG" (Greek letter mu with G) redirect here. For microgravity, see micro-g environment. Not to be confused with MG (in Latin letters) or uG (in Latin letters).}}
{{Infobox unit
| name = Microgram
| image = Radiance multivitamins nutritional information crop.jpg
| caption = A nutrition facts label displaying, for example, the amount of folic acid in micrograms
| standard = SI
| quantity = mass
| symbol = μg
}}
In the metric system, a microgram or microgramme is a unit of mass equal to one millionth ({{val|1|e=-6}}) of a gram. The unit symbol is μg according to the International System of Units (SI); the recommended symbol in the United States and United Kingdom when communicating medical information is mcg. In μg, the prefix symbol for micro- is the Greek letter μ (mu).
Abbreviation and symbol confusion
When the Greek lowercase "μ" (mu) is typographically unavailable, it is occasionally – although not properly {{Citation needed|reason=Considered "not properly" by whom?|date=September 2024}} – replaced by the Latin lowercase "u".
The United States–based Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommend that the symbol μg should not be used when communicating medical information due to the risk that the prefix μ (micro-) might be misread as the prefix m (milli-), resulting in a thousandfold overdose. The ISMP recommends the non-SI symbol mcg instead.{{cite web
|url=https://www.ismp.org/recommendations/error-prone-abbreviations-list
|title=ISMP's List of Error-Prone Abbreviations, Symbols, and Dose Designations
|access-date=2018-03-28
|publisher=ISMP}} However, the abbreviation mcg is also the symbol for an obsolete centimetre–gram–second system of units unit of measure known as millicentigram, which is equal to 10 μg.
Gamma (symbol: γ) is a deprecated non-SI unit of mass equal to 1 μg.[https://www.nist.gov/pml/weights-and-measures/publications/nist-handbooks/handbook-133 NIST Handbook 133 - 2018], [https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2017/04/28/12-apde-gentab-11-hb133-final.pdf#page=17 Appendix E. General Tables of Units of Measurement, page 159 (17)]
A fullwidth version of the "microgram" symbol is encoded by Unicode at code point {{unichar|338D|Square Mu G}} for use in CJK contexts.{{cite web |url=https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U3300.pdf |access-date=May 24, 2019 |title=The Unicode Standard 12.0 – CJK Compatibility ❰ Range: 3300—33FF ❱ |author=Unicode Consortium |author-link=Unicode Consortium |date=2019 |website=Unicode.org}} In other contexts, a sequence of the Greek letter mu (U+03BC) and Latin letter g (U+0067) should be used.
See also
{{wiktionary|microgram|μg|mcg}}
- List of SI prefixes
- Orders of magnitude (mass), listing a few items that have a mass of around 1 μg.