[Comparison of anesthesia with thiopental or etomidate in short duration operations]

Forty ASA I-II women who were scheduled for uterine curettage were randomly allotted to two groups of 20 patients each. Both groups were age- and weight- matched. They were pre-treated with atropine (0.01 mg/kg) and diazepam (0.1 mg/kg). Anesthesia was induced with 2.5% thiopental (5 mg/kg) or 0.1% etomidate (0.3 mg/kg) and was maintained with N2/O2 at 50% and isoflurane at 1% adding supplementation doses of inducer (20% of initial dose) when required. Quality of induction and maintenance of anesthesia, cardiovascular effects, secondary effects and quality and rapidity of awakening were evaluated. Etomidate patients presented a higher number of secondary effects and pain on injection of the drug (p less than 0.05) and occurrence of excitatory motions (p less than 0.01) attained statistical significance. Evaluation of anesthesia quality was significantly higher with thiopental (p less than 0.05). There were no differences with respect to the remaining studied variables. We conclude that etomidate when used as unique agent in anesthesia induction has no advantages over thiopental in healthy patients undergoing short duration operations.