Prevention of thiopental and thiopental/halothane cardiac sensitization to epinephrine in the sheep.

The effects of epinephrine (5 microgram/kg of body weight) on ten unanesthetized sheep were experimentally tested: all sheep displayed serious arrhythmias. Sheep anesthetized with thiopental and thiopental/halothane combination displayed cardiac arrhythmias of the order of 10% and 20% respectively. Challenge injections of epinephrine (5 microgram/kg of body weight) to ten sheep anesthetized with thiopental, and to the same number of animals after 45 minutes of anesthesia with thiopental/halothane, produced serious arrhythmias. However, following preanesthetic treatment with acepromazine maleate (0.5 mg/kg) to 15 sheep, serious arrhythmias were prevented in all of them when they were given arrhythmic doses of epinephrine.