The purpose of the study was to determine the effect of nondepolarizing muscle relaxants and waiting time on muscle
fasciculations after
succinylcholine in anaesthetized patients. Adult men and women, 60-80 kg, received pretreatment doses of
atracurium 5 mg (n = 160),
pancuronium 1 mg (n = 123),
d-tubocurarine 3 mg (n = 97), or
vecuronium 1 mg (n = 62). Waiting times between pretreatment and
succinylcholine, 100 mg, ranged between 0.6 and 5 min. Data points (presence or absence of
fasciculations and waiting time) were entered for each patient. Waiting time response curves were obtained between the logit transformation of the probability of no
fasciculations and the log waiting time for each
drug. Statistical differences between wait time response curves were determined by non-overlapping of the associated 95% confidence intervals. The frequency of muscle
fasciculations was reduced with increased waiting time for all nondepolarizers tested. Following wait times of three, four and five minutes, the probability of not fasciculating was greatest with
d-tubocurarine (90, 97 and 99%, respectively) and
atracurium (89, 93 and 96%). Corresponding values for
pancuronium were 70, 82 and 88% and for
vecuronium were 74, 82 and 86%. Waiting times to prevent
fasciculations in 80% and 90% of patients were shorter with
d-tubocurarine (2.46 and 3.02 min, respectively) or
atracurium (2.16 and 3.24 min) than
pancuronium (3.77 and 5.35 min) or
vecuronium (3.73 and 6.36 min).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)