Etomidate in urological outpatient anaesthesia. A clinical evaluation.

Induction of anaesthesia with the new short acting agent etomidate has been studied in 200 patients undergoing urological outpatient procedures. These patients exhibited a similar pattern of recovery to those receiving 7 mg/kg propanidid but had greater cardiac and respiratory stability. However, there was a 25% incidence of pain which was reduced to 13-9% by increasing the rate of injection from 30 to 15 seconds. The incidence of involuntary movements was 29-7% which was reduced to 15% by the faster rate of injection. The omission of atropine premedication did not affect cardiac stability. Etomidate appears to have many desirable features as an induction agent except for a high incidence of pain on injection which is reduced by rapid injection.