title: Dose-responses for edrophonium during antagonism of vecuronium block in young and older adult patients.
abstract: The dose-response relationship for edrophonium during antagonism of vecuronium-induced neuromuscular blockade was studied in two groups of adult patients of mean (SD) age 35 (10.0) years (n = 42) and 77 (5.4) years (n = 42) respectively. Neuromuscular block was monitored by recording the force of contraction of the adductor pollicis muscle following train-of-four stimulation. Six patients in each age group received 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 1.0, or 1.5 mg.kg-1 of edrophonium, or normal saline at 10% recovery of T1 (first response in the train-of-four) after a single dose of vecuronium 0.08 mg.kg-1. The train-of-four ratios were recorded continuously over the next 10 min and the values at 1 min intervals from 5 min onwards were used to construct the dose-response curves. The dose-response curves showed no significant difference between the two age groups except at 10 min. The estimated dose of edrophonium required for attaining a train-of-four ratio of 0.7 at 10 min was 0.9 and 1.3 mg.kg-1 in the younger and older groups, respectively (p < 0.05).
authors.affiliation: Department of Anaesthetics, Queen's University of Belfast.
authors.forename: G J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: McCarthy
authors.forename: R K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Mirakhur
authors.forename: V R
authors.initials: VR
authors.lastname: Maddineni
authors.forename: E P
authors.initials: EP
authors.lastname: McCoy
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D004491:Edrophonium / Q000008:administration & dosage* / Q000494:pharmacology; D006801:Humans; D007700:Kinetics; D008875:Middle Aged; D009119:Muscle Contraction / Q000187:drug effects; D009469:Neuromuscular Junction / Q000187:drug effects*; D014673:Vecuronium Bromide / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors*
chemical_list: D004491:Edrophonium; D014673:Vecuronium Bromide