The Effects of Spinal Anesthesia on ED50 and BIS50 of Etomidate for the Loss of Consciousness — LOC  

Dose-Response Relationship, Drug Clinical Trial

Official title: The Effects of Spinal Anesthesia on ED50 and BIS50 of Etomidate for the Loss of Consciousness

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of spinal anesthesia on ED50 and BIS50 of etomidate for the loss of consciousness (LOC) by using up-and-down method.The hypothesis was that spinal anesthesia could significantly reduce the etomidate bolus dose for the LOC and could also achieve hemodynamic stability during anesthesia induction.

Clinical Trial Description

The combination of spinal with general anesthesia has been demonstrated to provide many clinically relevant advantages, however, this technique often experiences hypotension and bradycardia in the induction period of combined anesthesia. Etomidate is a carboxylated imidazole-derived hypnotic, and it is the most cardiovascularly stable intravenous induction drug, with the possible exception of ketamine. Meanwhile, the previous and our studies have been reported that spinal anesthesia has a direct sedative effect on animals and humans, and it markedly reduces the dose of hypnotic agents. To date, there is no dose-ranging study on the effect of spinal anesthesia on dosage of etomidate for the loss of consciousness (LOC). In the present study, investigators aim to investigate the effect of spinal anesthesia on the median effective dose (ED50) and the BIS value (BIS50) of etomidate at which 50% of patients lose consciousness compared to etomidate alone by using up-and-down method.

Patients were randomly allocated to one of two groups: only etomidate in group E (n=27) and spinal anesthesia combined with etomidate in group SE (n=21) using a randomization table. Patients in the SE group received spinal anesthesia first, and bilateral sensory anesthesia level was confirmed to remain at the T4-T6 level. After confirmation of the level of sensory anesthesia, the administration of etomidate was conducted. The etomidate (Nhwa Pharmaceutical, Jiangsu, China) starting dose of E group and SE group is 0.105 mg/kg and 0.089mg/kg, respectively. The dose of etomidate used for next patient was determined according to the response of the previously tested patient using the up-and-down method. If the patient lose consciousness, the dose of etomidate was reduced by one dose gradient for the next patient, and if didn't lose consciousness, the dose of etomidate was increased by one dose gradient (one dose gradient is r=1:0.85, that is, the ratio of high dose/low dose which are adjacent two doses). The testing of different dose levels of etomidate continued on consecutive randomised patients until a sample size of seven crossover points from "conscious" to "LOC" was reached ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Dose-Response Relationship, Drug
• Unconsciousness

• NCT number: NCT03240055
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: June 1, 2017
• Completion date: July 15, 2017