Effect of thiopental and succinylcholine on serum potassium concentration in children undergoing surgery

ABSTRACT

The effect of thiopental and succinylcholine on serum K[+] concentration in children undergoing surgery was studied in 90 medically free, children undergoing a variety of elective surgical procedures for which general anaesthesia was required. Patients were classified according to their ages into 3 groups each of them contains 30 patients. Furtherly, each group was divided according to the anaesthetic technique into 2 subgroups each contains 15 patients. This study was undertaken to compare the effect of thiopental without a muscle relaxant and the use of thiopental and succinylcholin on serum potassium concentrations in medically free children undergoing elective surgeries. It was found that, thiopental alone produces a significant decrease in serum K[+] levels in all groups of patients regardless their ages. And the use of thiopental before succinylcholine also produces a significant decrease in serum K[+] to a level below the control level in groups I and II, but in group III of patients there was non significant changes in serum K[+] after the use of thiopental and succinylcholine