Blood concentrations of tetracaine and its metabolite following spinal anesthesia

Kudo, Keiko; Hino, Yukiko; Ikeda, Noriaki; Inoue, Hidefumi; Takahashi, Shosuke

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Volume 116, Issue 1 , Pages 9-14, 1 February 2001

Blood concentrations of tetracaine and its metabolite following spinal anesthesia

Keiko Kudo
- Department of Forensic Pathology and Sciences, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan
Yukiko Hino
- Department of Forensic Pathology and Sciences, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan
Noriaki Ikeda
- Department of Forensic Pathology and Sciences, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan
- Corresponding author. Tel.: +81-92-642-6124; fax: +81-92-642-6126
Hidefumi Inoue
- Department of Anesthesiology & Critical Care Medicine, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan
Shosuke Takahashi
- Department of Anesthesiology & Critical Care Medicine, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan

Received 19 May 2000; received in revised form 22 June 2000; accepted 27 June 2000.

Abstract

Blood concentrations of tetracaine and its metabolite, p-butylaminobenzoic acid, were measured after spinal anesthesia with tetracaine which had been administered to patients under going orthopedic surgery. Tetracaine, an ester anesthetic, was given to 10 patients, the dose was 8–14mg, and blood samples were collected 1, 2 and 6h after the injection of tetracaine. We used gas chromatography/mass spectrometry for purposes of analysis. Tetracaine was not detected in any blood sample, but the metabolite was detected in each sample with the mean concentrations of 126.5, 97.9 and 43.3ng/ml at 1, 2 and 6h, respectively. This data will be useful in determination of the cause of death after spinal anesthesia with tetracaine.