ABSTRACT
The present report evaluates the incidence of pain on intravenous injection and the condition oftracheal intubation at one minute following the administration of cisatracurium or rocuronium versus rocuronium-cisatracurium combination. We studied 60 patients, ASA 1, aged 18-60 years, undergoing elective surgical procedures. The patients were randomly assigned to 3 groups who received intravenously either 0.15 mg/kg cisatracurium [2ED[95]], 0,6 mg rocuronium [2ED[95]] or a combination of 0.075 mg/kg cisatracurium [ED[95]], plus 0.3 mg rocuronium [1ED[95]]. In the awake patients, the pain on injection of muscle relaxant was assessed on a four point scale [none, mild, moderate, severe]. Administration of the relaxant was followed by 1-2 mg/kg of lidocaine and 2 mg/kg propofol. Oro-tracheal intubation was performed 60 seconds following the administration of the relaxant. The intubating conditions were assessed and rated as excellent, good, fair or poor. The administration of 2ED[95] cisatracurium resulted in poor intubating conditions at 60s, without pain on injection. In contrast, the administration of 2ED[95] rocuronium resulted in excellent or good intubating conditions at 60s associated with high incidence of pain on injection in most of the patients. However, the combination of 1ED[95] cisatracurium with 1ED[95] rocuronium provided similar intubating conditions to the 2ED[95] rocuronium alone, associated with a significantly less pain on injection