Alcuronium 0.16 mg kg-1 was used to provide neuromuscular blockade in patients with chronic renal failure undergoing renal transplantation. Relaxation was found to be adequate for intubation and surgery. There were minimal alterations to cardiovascular variables. The dose required was small, and complete reversal occurred with neostigmine. Although the number of patients is small, the drug may ...

The mechanism of arterial hypotension induced by non-depolarizing neuromuscular blocking agents may be multifactorial and differ between drugs. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of high-dose atracurium and equivalent doses of other non-depolarizing neuromuscular blocking agents on haemodynamic state and sympathetic nervous activity. In studies on 24 mongrel dogs anaesthetized...

The haemodynamic effects of 200 micrograms.kg-1 pipecuronium and pancuronium were compared under etomidate/piritramide anaesthesia in 20 patients scheduled for elective coronary artery surgery. Following the completion of the haemodynamic measurements (ten minutes), anaesthesia was maintained by etomidate/sufentanil infusion. The mean changes in cardiac output were approximately -19 and -2 per ...

The development of neuromuscular blockade of the adductor pollicis muscle following vecuronium 0.1, 0.15 and 0.2 mg kg-1, was compared with the development of intubating conditions and respiratory paralysis. From this relationship, the optimal time after injection required for ideal tracheal intubation was calculated for the three doses of vecuronium. The effects of these doses of vecuronium on...

We have studied the effects of a single i.v. dose of sufentanil 5 micrograms kg-1 in combination with pancuronium on the median nerve short latency somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEP) in 15 unpremedicated patients undergoing thoracic or lumbar spinal surgery. The latency and amplitude of the SSEP response over the second cervical vertebra (SC) and sensory cortex (P17, N20, P25), heart rate a...

BACKGROUND A model of an antegrade, perfused, isolated rat peroneal nerve anterior tibial muscle was developed to study potentially important factors governing the time course of action of (nondepolarizing) neuromuscular blocking agents such as concentration, blood flow, and temperature. The model allows observation of the effects of selective changes in these factors. METHODS The authors iso...

Edrophonium and neostigmine are anticholinesterase drugs used commonly to antagonize competitive neuromuscular block. Although it has a faster onset of action than neostigmine, edrophonium is unreliable when used to antagonize deep neuromuscular block. We have compared the antagonist characteristics of these two drugs when used to antagonize a moderate degree of pancuronium- or tubocurarine-ind...

The interaction of four inhalational anesthetics (sevoflurane, isoflurane, enflurane and halothane) with pancuronium and vecuronium and also their prejunctional actions at the neuromuscular junction were quantitatively studied using rat phrenic nerve-hemidiaphragm preparations. To investigate the prejunctional effects of inhalational anesthetics, a train-of-four ratio (T4/T1) and the tetanus ra...