Role of thiopentone, nitrous oxide and relaxant anaesthesia in causing the syndrome of post-operative paralysis in man.

Forty-seven patients undergoing elective/emergency surgery were investigated for the recovery pattern by numerically scoring the state of consciousness, skeletomuscular tone, respiration and blood pressure after the neuromuscular transmission at the level of thenar muscles returned to normalcy. Anaesthesia in them consisted of thiopentone induction and passive ventilation with nitrous oxide and oxygen mixtures (4 1/2:2 1/2 1) with consequent changes in PaCO-2 (22.0 to 90 mm Hg) after using 0.43 to 0.68 mg/kg d-tubocurarine or 2.3 to 3.8 mg/kg gallamine. In this series twelve patients were selected at random and biological assay of cerebrospinal fluid in them for curare/gallamine after 15 min anaesthesia and in the recovery phase was carried out on frog rectus muscle. All the patients recovered satisfactorily and did not present clinical signs of depression of central nervous system, even though all of them showed the presence of curare (ranging from 0.05 to 0.33 mug/ml) and gallamine (from 0.1 to 0.75 mug/ml) in the cerebrospinal fluid. This study therefore indicates that thiopentone, nitrous oxide and relaxant type of anaesthesia does not cause clinical syndrome of post-operative paralysis even when mild to moderate degree of hypocapnia is present and even when such a technique of anaesthesia is administered in poor-risk patients with associated changes in acid-base balance, electrolytes etc. Significant quantities of skeleto-muscular relaxant drug (used during the technique) when found in cerebrospinal fluid after the technique of anaesthesia need not induce post-operative paralysis in man.