• Weiguo Wu, Qiang Zheng, Jinfeng Zhou, Xiujuan Li, and Haipeng Zhou.
• Department of Anaesthesiology, Qilu Hospital (Qingdao), Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Qingdao, P. R. China.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2024 Mar 8; 103 (10): e37454e37454.

BackgroundPhenylephrine may cause a reduction in maternal cerebral tissue oxygen saturation (SctO2) during Caesarean birth to prevent spinal hypotension; however, the effect of norepinephrine has not been assessed. We hypothesized that norepinephrine was more effective than phenylephrine in maintaining SctO2 when preventing spinal hypotension during Caesarean birth.MethodsWe conducted a randomized, double-blind, controlled study. Sixty patients were randomly assigned to prophylactic norepinephrine or phenylephrine to maintain blood pressure during spinal anesthesia for Caesarean birth. SctO2, systolic blood pressure, and heart rate were recorded. The primary outcome was the incidence of a 10% reduction of intraoperative SctO2 from baseline or more during Caesarean birth.ResultsThe norepinephrine group had a lower incidence of more than 10% reduction of intraoperative SctO2 from baseline than that of the phenylephrine group (13.3% vs 40.0%, P = .02). The change in SctO2 after 5 minutes of norepinephrine infusion was higher than that after phenylephrine infusion (-3.4 ± 4.7 vs -6.2 ± 5.6, P = .04). The change in SctO2 after 10 minutes of norepinephrine infusion was higher than that after phenylephrine infusion (-2.5 ± 4.4 vs -5.4 ± 4.6, P = .006). The norepinephrine group showed greater left- and right-SctO2 values than the phenylephrine group at 5 to 10 minutes. However, the change in systolic blood pressure was comparable between the 2 groups.ConclusionNorepinephrine was more effective than phenylephrine in maintaining SctO2 when preventing spinal hypotension during Caesarean birth. However, the changes in clinical outcomes caused by differences in SctO2 between the 2 medications warrant further studies.Copyright © 2024 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

22 keywords...

hide…