Pharmacology CNS Nausea/GA Flashcards
Is there a target site for anaesthesia?
No as all brain function progressively affected such as motor control, relax activity, respiration (chemoreceptors) and autonomic regulation
Describe the stages of anaesthesia:
Loss of memory
Loss of motor reflex
Loss of response to painful stim
Changes in CV and resp physiology
Describe the first stage of anaesthesia:
Analgesia- mild depression of higher cortical neurons
Describe stage two of anaesthesia:
Delirium- excitation/ inhibition of reticular neurons
Involuntary movements and excitation of voluntary muscle
Describe stage three of anaesthesia:
Surgical anaesthesia
4 planes:
-gradual loss of thoracic resp
-decrease eye movements
-rapid loss of muscle tone
-loss of pharyngeal/larangeal reflexes
Describe stage four of anaesthesia:
Overdose; respiratory and circulatory paralysis
No CO= death
How is there a fine balance between anaesthesia and death?
As the conc of a GA is increased, the switch from being conscious to unconscious occurs over a very narrow conc range (around 0.2 of a log unit)
Non competitive antagonists identifies
Name the 2 classes of GA:
IV= induction
Inhalation= maintenance
Name examples of IV GA:
Ketamine
Thiopental
Propofol
Etomide
Name examples of inhaled GA:
Halothane
Nitrous oxide
Isoflurane
Sevoflurane
Desflurance
What is the elimination like in IV GA?
Unconsciousness occurs in seconds as soon as drug reaches the brain
Slow elimination from the body compared to inhalation
Describe the blood flow (CO) in different areas of the body:
Brain, heart, viscera, lungs (happens in secs/mins) -2/3 of CO
Muscle, skin (happens in 10’s of mins) -1/3 of CO
Fat (happens in hours) -2% of CO
Describe the elimination of thiopental and why this is bad:
Recovery has to await distribution into fat and elimination hangover
Thiopental displays saturation kinetics, large or repeated doses can cause the plateau in the blood conc to become more and more elevated as more drug accumulates in the body and the metabolism saturates
Name unwanted SEs for thiopental and propofol:
Causes CV and resp depression
Describe the elimination of propofol and why is this good:
Rapid onset and rapid rate of redistribution, can be used as a continuous infusion but maintaining desired levels are hard
No hangover- rapidly metabolised, so a limited cumulative effect
First order kinetics- no saturation
Useful for day case surgery
How does ketamine work as a GA?
Acts differently to all other anaesthetics as it increases BP and HR and has no effect on resp
Can be used in low tech healthcare situations (IM)
Powerful analgesic
Slower onset (1-2 mins)
What are the unwanted SEs of ketamine?
Can increase intracranial pressure
Hallucinations
Delirium during recovery
Describe the pharmacokinetics of inhalation GA:
Involves a series of equilibration events:
-the GA first eq with the alveoli
-equilibration in the blood should be rapid: an ideal inhalation anaesthetic rapidly reaches the required arterial blood conc and vice versa
-blood must become saturated for transfer of GA to the tissues (slow)
Describe the pathway of the inhaled GA:
Inhaled gas- alveoli- blood- tissues
Describe the structure of inhaled GA to work:
Small and lipophillic so rapidly cross alveolar membrane
What is the kinetics behaviour of the inhaled GA due to?
Solubility
Expressed as partition coefficients:
-blood: gas coefficient
-oil: gas coefficient
What are partition coefficients?
The ratio of the conc of an inhalation anaesthetic in two different phases at equilibrium
Describe how the blood: gas coefficient is used to determine pharmacological effect:
Conc of GA in the brain closely tracks that in arterial blood (BBB)
Describe the effect of a low solubility drug on equilibrium:
E.g NO, B:G coefficient= 0.5
Inhaled- slow blood absorption (low alveolar conc), more breaths taken so build up of drug, medium conc but slow blood absorption as not very soluble
Eventually equilibrium occurs- faster equilibration
Describe the effect of a high solubility drug on the equilibrium:
E.g ether= 12, halothane= 2.4
Inhaled- dissolves rapidly into blood (low alveolar conc), more breathes so fast blood absorption (low alveolar partial pressure of drug) so low pp, equilibrium not reached, slow rate, takes longer
Describe how the oil:gas partition coefficient is used to determine pharmacological effect:
Transfer of anaesthetic between blood and tissues affect the kinetics of eq
Body fat is around 20% of the total volume of body
Many GA 100x more soluble in fat than in water so after eq 95% will be in fat
Venous blood coming from fat is only 2% of total and so change in GA conc in the venous blood as a result of uptake or leakage will be very small
What are factors affecting the rate of eq of the inhaled GA in the body?
Ventilation rate
CO (blood flow):
-Lean tissue (increase CO), fast perfusion, small partition coefficient, rapid eq
-Fat, slow perfusion, large partition coefficient, slow eq
What is true about a patient’s body fat in terms of GA response?
It takes hours for the drug to enter and leave the fat due to slow blood flow
Halothane has a high O:G coefficient, extremely fat soluble, the more fat a patient has the slower the recovery, longer the surgery, longer the hangover/recovery
What is the partition coefficient for nitrous oxide and its induction/recovery rate:
O:G= 1.4
B:G= 0.5
Fast
What is the partition coefficient for halothane and its induction/recovery rate:
O:G= 220
B:G= 2.4
Medium
What is the partition coefficient for ether and its induction/recovery rate:
O:G= 65
B:G= 12
Slow
What is the minimal alveolar conc (MAC)?
MAC required to abolish the response to surgical incision in 50% of subjects
Correlation between MAC and the lipid solubility of the drug, linear
No correlation with chemical strucutre
What is the general principle of how GA work?
Anaesthetic molecules bind to hydrophobic pockets within specific membrane protein targets
Which targets could be responsible for anaesthesia?
GABAa receptor
Glutamate receptor
VG Na+, K+ and Ca2+ channels
Describe how GABAa receptors are involved in GA:
Most anaesthetics enhance activity of GABA at GABAa r including propofol
GABAa receptors are ligand gated Cl- channels consisting of 5 subunits (2a,2B,1g or 1 epsilon subunit)
Anaesthetics bind to hydrophobic pockets within different GABAa receptor subunits, this is complex as there are different subunit composition in different r