Sweatman - Anesthesia Flashcards
(150 cards)
What are the currently approved inhalational anesthetics?
- GASES: nitrous oxide (N2O)
- LIQUIDS (volatile): Halothane, Enflurane, Isoflurane, Desflurane, and Sevoflurane
- NOTE: these agents + the IV agents are capable of rendering the pt unconscious, and are sometimes referred to as general anesthetics
What is analgesia?
- Relief of pain without intentional production of altered mental state (may be secondary)
What is anxiolysis?
- DEC apprehension with no change in level of consciousness
What is conscious sedation?
- Dose-dependent
- Protective reflexes maintained
- Independent maintenance of airway/O2 sats/ventilation
- Response to physical/verbal stimulation
What is deep/unconscious sedation?
- Profound effects, with loss of 1 or more of the following:
1. Protective reflexes
2. Independent maintenance of airway/O2 sats/ventilation
3. Response to physical/verbal stimulation - NOTE: this state does NOT mean the pt is unconscious, but can be transitioned to unconsciousness with add’l drug application
What is general anesthesia?
- Sensory, mental, reflex, and motor blockade
- Concurrent loss of all protective reflexes
What are general anesthetics? Name 2 critical features of these agents.
- Agents capable of producing reversible depression of neuronal function, producing loss of ability to perceive pain and/or other sensations (and often loss of protective reflexes)
1. Maintaining patent airway often required, and + pressure ventilation may be needed to counteract depressed spontaneous ventilation or drug-induced neuromuscular blockade
2. Inhalational and IV dosing preferred bc they offer more immediate control over dose and duration of action -> minute-to-minute control
What is the Myer-Overton hypothesis? Caviat?
- States that anesthetic activity is directly linked to lipid solubility
- Caviat: this is not the entire story -> modifying anesthetic agents to make them more lipid soluble can completely remove any anesthetic qualities, so this relationship is more complex than stated by the hypothesis
How does lipid solubility affect anesthetic potency? How is this measured?
- Higher lipid solubility = higher potency of the drug in producing unconsciousness
- Lipid solubility is described by the physical chemical property known as the oil gas partition coefficient
1. Larger oil-gas partition coefficient = more lipid soluble drug

What is MAC?
-
Minimum alveolar concentration: the concentration in inspired gas required to render half of a gp of pts unconscious/unresponsive to painful stimulus
1. Used clinically to compare/determine potency of different anesthetic agents
2. Lower required MAC = more potent anesthetic - In clinical practice, it is customary to titrate dose of anesthetic upwards to successfully anesthetize patients
What are the common mechanistic attributes of the inhalational anesthetics (chart)?
- COMMON: potentiation of INH and INH of stimulatory pathways in the CNS
1. Reinforcement of GABA and glycine INH signalling
2. Reinforcement of two pore potassium channel activity
3. Inhibition of glutamatergic signaling - NOTE: subtle differences in activity on other receptor systems gives rise to differences in effects experienced by patients receiving anesthesia
1. All 4 also INH NMDA and Ach
2. Isoflurane potentiates serotonin; others INH it
3. Only NO does NOT INH voltage-gated K channels

How does anesthesia affect cortical interactions? Compare this to wakefulness.
- ANESTHESIA: feedback transfer entropy (red) reduced, implying DEC in front-to-back interactions
- WAKING: transfer entropy, a measure of directional interactions among brain areas, is balanced in feed forward (green) and feedback directions
- NOTE: in the bottom image, an awake rat shows a response in the visual occipital cortex, then the parietal association cortex when exposed to a flashing light
1. Under anesthesia, the occipital response is preserved (shorter), and the parietal response is attenuated, indicating anesthesia reduces cortical interactions, reducing integration

Where in the body do anesthetics have an effect?
- The agent distributes throughout the body, incl. to peripheral neurons
- Overall effect of the drug includes:
1. Direct effect in the CNS, AND
2. Modulation of ascending neural pathways to the CNS, AND
3. Modulation of descending pathways to peripheral tissues

What are the Guedel stages of anesthesia? What changes precede and follow them?
- INITIAL admin of anesthetic yields a period of delirium: exaggerated mechanics of respiration (incl. breath holding), INC in BP and skeletal mm tone, dilation of pupil
1. Probably from removal of INH neural pathways prior to anesthetic concentrations being achieved - NEXT, pt slips into unconsciousness w/dose-dependent loss of respiratory function, CV function (decline in BP), and loss of protective reflexes and mm tone
- LASTLY, pt who is very deeply anesthetized is at greater risk of expiring during procedure + will take much longer time to recover consciousness -> anesthesiologists must maintain sufficient depth of unconsciousness for clinical procedure, while not producing too deep a level of unconsciousness

What 2 “functions” are lost first when administering anesthetic to a pt?
- Explicit memory and perceptive awareness
1. These losses can precede production of analgesia, so it is customary in anesthesia to rely on analgesics to ensure pt is pain-free - NOTE: action on the various neuronal pathways requires different drug concentrations

What is unique about the structure of the volatile agents?
- Simple, diverse, and contain a halogen, like FLUORINE
1. Propensity for fluorine to produce renal damage and dysfunction, BUT
2. Fluorine also removes the explosive nature of the volatile liquids (which have the capacity to explode given the vital spark) - NOTE: claims that one isomer of these asymmetric carbon atom racemic mixtures possess greater anesthetic potency, but no definitive evidence of this

What are volatile anesthetics most often administered with? How do you calculate the partial/tension pressure of the gases in the mixture?
- Volatile anesthetics are most commonly administered in conjunction with nitrous oxide and oxygen
- Multiply their percentage in the mixture by the total pressure (760 mm Hg at sea level) -> partial pressure is thus proportional to the gas’ concentration in the overall mixture

What is the significance of the blood/gas partitioning #’s for the volatile liquid anesthetics?
- Equilibration of the anesthetic gas between alveoli and bloodstream is a gradual process -> when completed, the partial pressure of anesthetic component in admixture is equal to that in the systemic circulation
- The absolute mass of anesthetic is different, however, and dictated by the blood/gas partitioning characteristics of the individual agent
- For halothane, the # is 2.3, which means at equilibrium, where Halothane occupies 2% volume in gaseous phase, it occupies 2.3x that, or 4.6% volume, in the blood -> the partitioning # is:
1. Different for each inhaled gas, and
2. Is the major reason for differences in anesthesia onset time when the mask is applied

What are some of the differences b/t MAC’s, partition coefficients, and metabolism of the inhalational agents?
-
MAC’s: note how little of the anesthetic is required in the mixture to produce unconsciousness (Halothane lowest and nitrous oxide highest)
1. 105% MAC for N2O: incomplete anesthetic that is useful when mixed w/a volatile agent (additive effect in producing unconciousness, so dose required for individual effect approximately halved) -> no good for major surgery if used alone (hyperbaric chamber) - BLOOD/GAS FIGURES: newer drugs like Sevoflurane and Desflurane (lowest) require far less accumulation than Halothane (highest), so equilibration is achieved more rapidly
- As with the blood, the newer anesthetics equilibrate more rapidly into the BRAIN than does Halothane -> this accounts for some of the differences seen in time taken to produce unconsciousness
- METABOLISM: 20% of Halothane (highest) metabolized (mostly hepatically), but the newer agents (Desflurane lowest) and N2O undergo very little conversion
- NOTE: Xenon has a very rapid equilibration, but cost is prohibitive for use as an anesthetic

How does lipophilicity affect time to equilibration?
- The lipophilic anesthetic agents dissolve in the lipid component in the blood (analogous to o/drugs binding to plasma proteins) -> this dissolved fraction is incapable of equilibration into o/tissues
1. More lipophilic = more time to equilibration - While all of the inhaled agents are lipophilic, they vary in the degree of lipophilicity
1. IMAGE: comparison of equilibration of relatively insoluble N2O and very soluble halothane -> N2O reaches saturation in blood rapidly in comparison to vast appetite blood lipid has for halothane, which must be assuaged before substantial quantities can reach the brain (this process takes time)

How do the partitioning differences b/t the anesthetic agents impact their entry into AND escape from tissues?
- Newer agents (Desflurane and Sevoflurane) equilibrate more rapidly into the brain and produce a faster onset of unconsciousness than does Halothane
- At the same time, once the procedure is finished and the anesthetic turned off, the newer agents rapidly re- equilibrate from the brain to blood and then to alveoli, flooding back into the lungs and permitting a more rapid recovery of consciousness than with halothane

How are anesthetics distributed in the body? Why is this important?
- As with any drug, they are freely distributed in the body based on partitioning characteristics and blood supply to the tissue
- This is how the ascending and descending neuronal signals to the brain can be modified
- NOTE: red arrows indicate induction pathways, and blue arrows indicate emergence pathways (large arrows indicate net movement of the anesthetic agent)

In what sequence do anesthetics distribute into and are they eliminated from the body?
- Accumulation is dependent on rate of delivery to the tissue, and occurs most rapidly with high-flow organs, incl. the brain, and less rapid distribution into skeletal mm and adipose tissue
- Once anesthetic is turned off, elimination of drug is most rapid in high flow organs
1. Overall duration of elimination is governed by rate of release from adipose tissue - NOTE: while highly lipophilic drugs tend to accumulate in fat, this only occurs to a significant extent w/protracted anesthetic administration

What are 6 factors that influence the rate of anesthetic equilibration into the brain?
- Concentration of inspired gas: this is the only factor the anesthesiologist has calibrated control over
1. Onset of unconsciousness after mask application can be hastened by temporarily INC % of anesthesia delivered w/e/breath (i.e., may be at 1.3% during sx procedure, but 5% during anesthesia induction) - Respiration rate
- Solubility: partition coefficient
- Rate of blood flow to the lungs
- Cardiac output
- Tissue distribution


















































