[Peridural anesthesia using high volume prilocaine--success rate and patient acceptance. A prospective study of 630 anesthetized patients]. / Periduralanaesthesien mit hohen Volumina Prilocain--Erfolgsquoten und Patientenakzeptanz. Eine prospektive Studie über 630 Anaesthesien.

In a prospective clinical study the follow-up course of 630 lumbar single-shot and continuous epidural anesthetics in young patients (average age 24.5 years) with 20-25 ml prilocaine 2% (epinephrine concentration 1:200,000) and 0.1 mg fentanyl was examined critically. The patients were interviewed postoperatively about this method of anesthesia. In 89% of cases the patients had been found suitable for surgery without any additional medication; 9% of the patients needed 0.1-0.15 mg fentanyl and 2.5-5 mg midazolam i.v. Only in 10/630 cases was supplementary anesthesia needed. During anesthesia a drop in blood pressure by 30% or more of the original value was recorded in 1.4% of patients; 5 patients had obvious simultaneous bradycardia. Nausea and vomiting were observed in 2.5% of cases; in 6 patients the level of peridural anesthesia was as high as T4-5. Postoperatively, 19% of the patients complained of discomfort in the area of the lumbar vertebral column. It subsided significantly 2 days after surgery; in 5.6% of cases patients had micturition disorder needing treatment. In 93% of cases the patients considered the method of anesthesia quite acceptable; in the same circumstances 96.5% said they would prefer epidural block to general anesthesia. The main reasons for this were the possibility of observing the surgical operation (26.8%) and the likelihood of speedy recovery on the same day (24.3%). Epidural block is preferred to any form of general anesthesia according to the experience we have gained in these young patients without essential concomitant diseases and with exact consideration to the contraindications for all operations distal of segments T9 and T10.

[Changes in erythrocyte P50 and its effect on O2 transport in intravenous tocolysis with fenoterol (Partusisten)]. / Veränderungen des erythrozytären P50 und seines Einflusses auf den O2-Transport unter intravenöser Tokolyse mit Fenoterol (Partusisten).

Fenoterol (Partusisten), which has a considerable influence on glucose metabolism in addition to its well-known cardiac side-effects, does not appear to have any direct influence on the P50 of the maternal erythrocytes in in-vitro experiments. In incubation experiments with fresh erythrocytes, fluctuations in the P50 with an amplitude of 2-5 mmHg were measured at +37 degrees C; these fluctuations depend on the storage age of the erythrocytes and the glucose content of the incubation medium. Fenoterol has no effect on the amplitude, nor on the frequency of this P50 fluctuation. The glycolytic activity of the erythrocytes, relative to the 2,3-DPG and ATP content, also remains uninfluenced under Fenoterol. The addition of progesterone or cortisone to the incubation medium has no influence on the P50 of the maternal erythrocytes. In-vivo studies of the blood of pregnant women indicate changes of the P50 with maximal "shift to the left" after 6 hours and compensatory "shift to the right" after 20 hours under tokolysis. No fluctuations of the pH value were observed in our patients. The intraerythrocytic 2,3-DPG concentration changes simultaneously with the P50. Venous pO2 increases by approx. 12 mmHg in the first 3 hours following the start of tokolysis. However, the changes in the venous pO2 are not simultaneous with the changes in the P50. It can be stated that the progesterone level has no influence on the release of O2 from the maternal blood.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)