[General anaesthesia with ketamine for electro-cochleography in children (author's transl)]

To enable recordings to be made of compound action potentials of the acoustic nerve using transtympanic electro-cochleography, a method of modified general anaesthesia with ketamine has been tested on forty children. Sufficient sedation and analgesia causing the least mental disturbance and possibly minimal stress to the cardio-respiratory system was of special interest. We used a combination of droperidol and fentanyl as premedication in low dosage to obtain a maximal efficiency of the possibly minimal medication of intravenously injected ketamine. A recovery phase without troubles was ensured in older children by additional i.v. diazepam medication during the time of ketamine administration.