Thiopentone-lidocaine anaesthesia for pneumoencephalography.

GENERAL ANAESTHESIA fOr pneumoencephalography presents the anaesthetist with a technical problem that has not been solved satisfactorily. The anaesthetic administered should be tailored to meet the demands of patient safety, comfort, possibly increased intracranial pressure and unusual positioning that is necessary during the study. It should also provide a quiet patient for the radiologist to obtain his films quickly and eflqciently, and should be easy to administer, with a relative absence of disturbing side effects, to be acceptable to the anaesthetist. We have studied the use of thiopentone and lidocaine infusion to provide general anaesthesia during pneumoencephalography and have found it better suited to satisfy the demands of the p rocedure than other repor ted techniques, x-7 We also monitored cerebro-spinal fluid pressure changes during pneumoencephalography, and suggest possible relationships between cerebro-spinal fluid pressure responses, and altered cerebro-spinal fluid dynamics.