Key result
Vecuronium increases severe or symptomatic bradycardia compared to atracurium during balanced anesthesia.
Why the study?
Intra-operative bradycardia is a common cardiac arrhythmia during anesthesia with potentially dangerous outcomes, and its incidence with different neuromuscular blocking agents needed comparison.
Does atracurium reduce the incidence of intra-operative bradycardia compared to vecuronium in female patients undergoing elective abdominal hysterectomy?
RCT (n=50)
double-blind
randomised
Does atracurium reduce the incidence of intra-operative bradycardia compared to vecuronium in female patients undergoing elective abdominal hysterectomy?
Vecuronium is associated with a significantly higher incidence of severe or symptomatic intra-operative bradycardia compared to atracurium during elective abdominal hysterectomy.
Favors atracurium to reduce severe bradycardia risk; extends RCT evidence guiding neuromuscular blocker selection.
Intra-operative bradycardia is one of the most common cardiac arrhythmias observed in clinical anaesthetic practice and can lead to a potentially dangerous outcome. In a randomised double-blind trial, 50 female patients undergoing elective abdominal hysterectomy were divided into two groups. Group I received atracurium and group II received vecuronium as a neuromuscular blocking agent in a balanced anaesthetic technique. The incidence of bradycardia was compared among the two groups. Bradycardia was defined as a heart rate of less than 60 beat.min-1. A heart rate of less than 45 beat.min-1 was labelled as severe bradycardia and symptomatic bradycardia was defined as bradycardia associated with hypotension. The two groups were similar in their demographic characteristics. The results showed that there was no statistically significant difference among the two groups regarding the incidence of simple bradycardia. However, the incidence of severe bradycardia or symptomatic bradycardia requiring treatment was significantly higher in the vecuronium group.
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Hameedullah et al. (1997) conducted an RCT in elective abdominal hysterectomy (n=50). Atracurium vs. Vecuronium was evaluated on Incidence of bradycardia. Atracurium and vecuronium resulted in similar rates of simple bradycardia, but severe or symptomatic bradycardia was significantly higher in the vecuronium group.
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