Studies on Muscle Relaxants and their Antagonists. II

– Pharmacology of Muscle Relaxants and Their Antagonists

In 1942 Griffith and Johnson suggested that d-tubocurarine (dTc) is a safe drug to use during surgery to provide skeletal muscle relaxation. One year later, Cullen described its use in 131 patients who had received general anesthesia for their surgery. In 1954, Beecher and Todd reported a sixfold increase in mortality in patients receiving dTc versus those who had not received a relaxant. The i...

Muscle relaxants and antispasticity agents.

Muscle relaxants make up a heterogeneous group of agents and can have a clinically significant role in the treatment of chronic muscle pain. These medications are not without possible serious side effects; hence, care should be taken in deciding on their appropriateness and ongoing monitoring performed, if prescribed.

Muscle relaxants and Bier's block.

Sir We are grateful for the opportunity to reply to your correspondent. If no less an authority than Professor J. M. Hunter can write a sentence beginning 'With the advent of the two new non-depolarizing muscle relaxants, atracurium and vecurionium . . .' (Hunter, 1987), we feel we may use the same expression. Ethical committee approval for the addition of atracurium to Bier's blocks was obtain...

Muscle Disorders and the Relaxants.

1 Muscle weakness is a feature of many illnesses but the present discussion will be confined mainly to conditions in which it is a manifestation of defects in the anterior horn cells, the motor nerves, the neuromuscular junction, or the muscle itself. The pathogenesis of these disorders is often ill-understood and more than one component of the neuromuscular system may be involved. Moreover, kn...

Use of muscle relaxants.