Articles: anesthetics.
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Acta Anaesthesiol Belg · Jan 1988
ReviewIs there a need for chloroprocaine 3% and bupivacaine 0.75%?
Bupivacaine and chloroprocaine have proven to be valuable local anesthetics for a variety of surgical and obstetrical situations. Bupivacaine is particularly useful as a long acting agent which provides excellent sensory analgesia particularly during labor with minimal blockade of motor fibers. The 0.75% solution is useful for epidural surgical anesthesia since it does result in a decrease in onset time and a more marked motor blockade. ⋯ The local neural toxicity of chloroprocaine solutions is referably to the low pH and the inclusion of sodium bisulfite in these particular solutions. The toxicity of chloroprocaine solutions is related to total dosage rather than the concentration of solution employed. Careful administration of chloroprocaine epidurally in order to avoid accidental subarachnoid injection should preclude the possibility of local neural toxicity.
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The prevention of toxic accidents due to local anesthetics is simple. The doses used must be carefully selected according to the drug chosen, the areas to be anaesthetized, and whether or not the local anaesthetic solution contains adrenaline. Continuous infusions of local anaesthetics should be used with great care. ⋯ Using a test dose of adrenaline to detect accidental vascular puncture is simple, but not foolproof (patients treated with beta-blockers, obstetrical cases). The slow injection of local anaesthetics is the best way of preventing this type of accident. Finally, the technique for intravenous regional anaesthesia must be very strict.
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Nephrol. Dial. Transplant. · Jan 1988
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical TrialTopical anaesthesia for fistula cannulation in haemodialysis patients.
The use of a local anaesthetic cream (EMLA; Astra) for arteriovenous fistula cannulation was compared to placebo in a double-blind randomised manner in 26 patients undergoing chronic haemodialysis who were currently using injections of lignocaine. The EMLA cream was highly effective compared to placebo (P less than 0.001) on visual analogue and verbal rating scales as well as ease of venepuncture (P less than 0.01). It also gave more pain relief and improved the ease of venepuncture compared to lignocaine injections. Patients expressed a strong preference for the EMLA cream, which has advantages that outweigh the cost and convenience factors.
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Int J Clin Pharmacol Ther Toxicol · Jan 1988
ReviewPropofol, the newest induction agent of anesthesia.
Propofol is a rapidly acting intravenous anesthetic agent which has many advantageous kinetic properties explaining its usefulness by bolus dose for induction of anesthesia or for administration by continuous intravenous infusion. It is rapidly distributed in the body with a half-life of only around 2 min and has an efficient hepatic and extrahepatic clearance (total body clearance may exceed liver blood flow). Premedication has little effect on the already good induction characteristics of propofol. ⋯ Propofol has proved to be a useful induction agent regardless of the age of patients, but in the elderly there appears to exist a marked sensitivity to it. Up to now there is no evidence that propofol in emulsion drug form can produce allergic or anaphylactoid reaction more often than other induction agents in use and no severe hematological nor visceral toxicity have been reported. In the present situation, when althesin is not marketed any more due to a high frequency of anaphylactoid reactions and etomidate will have a limited use in clinical practice because of its blocking effect on adrenocortical function, propofol offers an important alternative anesthetic agent to thiopentone.