• E Liljeroth and J Akeson.
• Department of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, Karolinska University Hospital Solna, Stockholm, Sweden. elisabeth.liljeroth@karolinska.se
• Acta Anaesthesiol Scand. 2005 Feb 1;49(2):248-51.

BackgroundLocal pain at the site of intravenous (iv) injection of propofol remains a considerable problem in clinical anaesthesiology, and particularly so in infants. The aim of the present study was to compare the influence of two different emulsions of propofol on local pain following iv administration.MethodsEighty adult patients (ASA I-II) scheduled for ear-nose-throat or plastic surgery were randomly allocated into two study groups: A and B. A 1.0-mm teflon cannula (BD, Helsingborg, Sweden) was inserted into a dorsal vein on each hand. Each patient was given two 3.0-ml iv bolus injections of two different propofol emulsions of 10 mg ml(-1) over 2 s, one in each cannula, at 5-min intervals. The first study drug administered was Diprivan (AstraZeneca, Södertälie, Sweden) in group A (n = 34) and Propofol-Lipuro (Braun, Melsungen, Germany) in group B (n = 39). Each patient was then asked by a blinded investigator to score maximal pain intensity on a visual analogue scale (VAS).ResultsThe maximal intensity of propofol-induced local pain was significantly (P < 0.0001) lower after Propofol-Lipuro than after Diprivan--median 1 (25th percentile: 0; 75th percentile: 2) range 0-6 vs. 3 (0; 5) 0-9 VAS units.ConclusionThe considerably lower intensity of local pain found to be associated with iv administration of the new drug formula Propofol-Lipuro indicates that emulsions of propofol based on medium- and long-chain triglycerides have a clinical advantage over traditional ones for induction of anaesthesia.

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