Contribution of muscle relaxant to the haemodynamic course of high-dose fentanyl anaesthesia: a comparison of pancuronium, vecuronium and atracurium.

To define the role of muscle relaxants in haemodynamic responses to high-dose (75 micrograms X kg-1) fentanyl anaesthesia and to noxius stimuli associated with intubation and sternal spread during coronary artery bypass surgery, we compared haemodynamics between three groups of patients given either pancuronium (0.1 mg X kg-1, n = 11), vecuronium (0.086 mg X kg-1, n = 11) or atracurium (0.43 mg X kg-1, n = 12). Additional doses of the relaxants were given to maintain a 90 per cent neuromuscular block. Patients given pancuronium showed no increases in mean values of heart rate, arterial pressure or cardiac output during the induction of anaesthesia or after intubation, whereas a decrease in these variables was observed in the vecuronium group. The haemodynamics in the atracurium group were intermediate compared with the other two study groups. In spite of a decrease in coronary perfusion pressure, no patient given vecuronium developed myocardial ischaemia. An advantage of vecuronium over pancuronium and atracurium was an attenuation of the blood pressure response to sternotomy. Patients given atracurium had a small increase in pulmonary vascular resistance during sternotomy. Our patients continued their beta-adrenergic antagonist medication until the morning of the day of operation and they were pretreated with a small intravenous dose of diazepam (0.1 mg X kg-1) before induction of anaesthesia. These drugs may have prevented the deleterious haemodynamic effects observed by some investigators after the administration of pancuronium during high-dose fentanyl anaesthesia.