This Article  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Martin I. Gold, MD
University of Maryland Hospital Baltimore

JAMA. 1970;212(2):322.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

In Dr. Livingston's erudite and complete answer to the question of the administration of anesthesia in the epileptic patient (210:2401, 1969), no comment was made about conduction anesthesia. The value of a skillfully administered subarachnoid or epidural procedure in a well-sedated epileptic patient cannot be denied. On the other hand, in recent years neuropharmacologic evidence strongly suggests that an "overdosage" or a high blood level of a local anesthetic is particularly dangerous in the potentially convulsive patient. One is also interested in the meaning of "anesthetic convulsions" and "cortical excitation caused by some of these anesthetic drugs." Since virtually all anesthetics are central nervous system (CNS) depressants and, as Dr. Livingston suggests, have been used as has diethyl ether for controlling prolonged status epilepticus, one wonders if other reasons, such as anoxia, hypercarbia, and fever, are the real culprits during an "anesthetic convulsion." One might also . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?