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Pentobarbital Plasma Concentrations and Cardiac Electrophysiology During Prolonged Pentobarbital Infusion Anaesthesia in the Dog
Author(s) -
Hotvedt R.,
Platou E. S.,
Koppang E. R.,
Refsum H.
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
acta anaesthesiologica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.738
H-Index - 107
eISSN - 1399-6576
pISSN - 0001-5172
DOI - 10.1111/j.1399-6576.1982.tb01831.x
Subject(s) - medicine , pentobarbital , anesthesia , electrophysiology
There is need for a prolonged stable level of anaesthesia, and we therefore investigated the cardiac electrophysiological effects of continuous pentobarbital infusion after initial pentobarbital injection to induce anaesthesia in dogs. Plasma concentrations of pentobarbital were measured by gas‐liquid chromatography. Heart rate, atrial, atrioventricular (AV) nodal and His‐Purkinje conduction times were measured by His bundle electrography, and atrial, AV nodal and ventricular refractoriness by programmed electrical stimulation. Over a 5‐h observation period, continuous infusion of pentobarbital 3.5 mg · kg ‐1 h ‐1 after an initial pentobarbital injection of 25 mg · kg ‐1 intravenously gave stable mean plasma concentrations of 140‐135 μmol · l ‐1 . The cardiac electrophysiological variables studied did not change significantly during this period. We conclude that a stable experimental model for cardiac electrophysiological studies can be obtained for several hours by‐continuous pentobarbital infusion.