Fade Upon TOF Stimulation Induced by Succinylcholine
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2017-01-04
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Muscle relaxants are medications used during surgery to facilitate surgical access. The
effect of the muscle relaxant medications is measured by stimulation a motor nerve and
measuring the force of the resultant muscle contraction. Based on the mechanism of action,
two kinds of muscle relaxants are described. First a nondepolarizing muscle relaxant and the
second kind is the depolarizing muscle relaxant. These two kinds of muscle relaxants can be
distinguished by rapidly stimulating the nerve 4 times over 2 seconds (Train of four or TOF).
The nondepolarizing muscle relaxants produce fade ie successive muscle contractions are less
forceful than the preceding ones. Whereas the depolarizing muscle relaxants are generally
believed to produce four contractions of equal strength. However, there is some indication
that this may not be entirely correct. There is evidence that depolarizing muscle relaxants
also may produce fade. The investigators are conducting the following study to determine if
indeed depolarizing muscle relaxants produce fade. The investigators would also like to
characterize the fade ie differences during onset and offset of the block and the effect of
the dose on the degree on the fade.