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Minimum local analgesic dose of plain ropivacaine vs. ropivacaine combined with sufentanil during epidural analgesia for labour
Author(s) -
Palm S.,
Gertzen W.,
Ledowski T.,
Gleim M.,
Wulf H.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
anaesthesia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.839
H-Index - 117
eISSN - 1365-2044
pISSN - 0003-2409
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2044.2001.02050.x
Subject(s) - ropivacaine , sufentanil , medicine , anesthesia , analgesic , local anaesthetic , local anesthetic
We have used the up‐and‐down allocation technique to assess the relative analgesic potencies of epidural ropivacaine alone and ropivacaine combined with sufentanil 0.75 µg.ml −1 in 42 women requesting epidural analgesia in the first stage of labour. Parturients were randomly allocated to one of the two epidural solutions in a double‐blind manner. The concentration of local anaesthetic was determined by the response of the previous parturient: an effective concentration (pain ≤ 10 mm on a 10‐cm visual analogue pain score within 30 min) resulted in a 0.01% decrease in the concentration of ropivacaine for the next parturient, an ineffective concentration resulted in a 0.01% increase. Minimum local analgesic concentration of ropivacaine alone was 0.13% (95% CI 0.12–0.13%) compared with 0.09% (95% CI 0.08–0.1%) for ropivacaine with sufentanil (p < 0.00001).