Effective Dose of Atracurium in Korean Adults

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Background: Atracurium is non-depolarizing neuromuscular blocking agent with intermediate duration of action. The purpose of this study is to determine the effective dose (ED) of atracurium in Korean adults. Methods: We studied 100 patients, aged 18-59 yr, who had given informed consent and belonged to class I or II of ASA physical status. We excluded patients who had cardiac, pulmonary, renal, hepatic, neurological, psychiatric, muscular, inflammatory or endocrine disease, as were pregnant women and patient with recent exposure (. Anesthesia was maintained with continous infusion of propofol 5 mg/kg and 100% oxygen through mask, supplemented with fentanyl as required. The electrodes were applied over the ulnar nerve at the wrist. Then, the patients were stimulated with a 50 Hz supramaximal tetanic stimulation for 4 seconds and a 1 Hz single twitch for 5 minutes to stablize muscle contraction and then a control value was obtained with acceleromyography (TOF-, Organon Technika BV , Netherland). Thereafter, a 0.1 Hz single twitch of adductor pollicis was kept during the study. The 100 patients were randomly divided to five groups. The patients in each group received , , , , of atracurium. We measured the maximal response (% reduction) and time to achieve maximal blockade of single twitch. Values were expressed as mean SD or 95% confidence intervals. ED values were obtained from the regression analysis using probit model. A P value of and of atracurium were , , respectively. For men, and were , , respectively. For women, and were , , respectively. The onset time to maximum blockade was reduced as dose was increased. Conclusions: and of atracurium in Korean adults were , , respectively. There was no difference between the effective doses of men and women. Onset time of atracurium was reduced as doses were increased.