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Related Experiment Videos

Suppression of brainstem reflexes in barbiturate coma

P J Grattan-Smith1, W Butt

  • 1Intensive Care Unit, Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Archives of Disease in Childhood
|July 1, 1993
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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Thiopentone infusion in children can suppress brainstem reflexes. If reflexes are lost at low thiopentone levels (<40 mg/L), other causes like brain death should be investigated.

Area of Science:

  • Pediatric Anesthesiology
  • Neurocritical Care

Background:

  • Thiopentone is a barbiturate used for anesthesia and sedation.
  • Assessing brainstem reflexes is crucial for neurological evaluation in critically ill children.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To evaluate the relationship between serum thiopentone concentrations and brainstem reflexes in pediatric patients.
  • To determine the threshold of thiopentone concentration below which loss of brainstem reflexes suggests alternative diagnoses.

Main Methods:

  • Examined brainstem reflexes in 23 children receiving thiopentone infusion.
  • Correlated the presence or absence of reflexes with measured serum thiopentone levels.

Main Results:

  • Loss of all brainstem reflexes at serum thiopentone concentrations below 40 mg/L was observed.

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  • This finding suggests thiopentone alone may not be the sole cause for absent reflexes at this concentration.

    • Conclusions:

    • In pediatric patients, absent brainstem reflexes with serum thiopentone <40 mg/L warrants consideration of other etiologies.
    • Further investigation for conditions such as brain death is recommended in such cases.