Malignant hyperthermia (MH) is an inherited muscle disorder suffered by patients who undergo a stressful situation or acute trauma or who have been given certain anesthetic agents. 1,2 MH has been called the most common cause of anesthesiarelated death in North America, contributing a large percentage of the 15,000 to 20,000 of such deaths recorded annually.3 The 53% mortality rate of today com...

BACKGROUND Isoflurane has been reported to induce caspase-3 activation, which may induce neurotoxicity and contribute to the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease. However, the underlying mechanism is largely unknown, especially whether or not isoflurane can induce ryanodine receptors (RyRs)-associated endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, leading to caspase-3 activation. We therefore assessed the e...

BACKGROUND Between 1992 and 2011, 373 Canadian individuals with adverse anesthetic reaction were referred to the Malignant Hyperthermia Unit in Toronto, Ontario, Canada for malignant hyperthermia (MH) diagnostic testing. We analyzed the epidemiologic characteristics of the index adverse anesthetics for those probands who were confirmed to be MH susceptible. METHODS One hundred twenty-nine pro...

In renal proximal tubule cells, the organic anion transporters 1 and 3 (OAT1 and OAT3) in the basolateral membrane and the multidrug resistance-associated protein 4 (MRP4) in the apical membrane share substrates and co-operate in renal drug secretion. We hypothesized that recently identified MRP4 inhibitors dantrolene, glafenine, nalidixic acid, and prazosin also interact with human OAT1 and/or...

A young male schizophrenic presented with neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS). Risperidone was the probable precipitating agent. Rigidity and elevated CPK levels poorly responded to bromocriptine, but showed good response to dantrolene. The role of specific treatment and the differential response of the symptom clusters are discussed.