[In vivo blood histamine during anesthesia]

Assays of overal histaminaemia were carried out, in 150 patients anaesthetised according to three different techniques, apart from any surgical act. 119 anaesthesias took place without any incident, 33 were disturbed by the appearance of rashes or of bronchospasm. The overall histaminaemia varied according to three types of graphs (a flat graph, an ascending graph, or a descending graph) without it being possible to evoke any relationship between this course and the clinical signs. It seems that the presence of a background predisposing to histamine-liberation is however responsible for greater frequency of the descending graphs, and that the method of administration of the anaesthetic product is a factor which can intervene in the genesis of the phenomena of histamine-liberation during anaesthesia. An interpretation of the variations in the graphs of histaminaemia is attempted by the authors.