Three patients with chronic renal failure received fentanyl 0.5 mg and suxamethonium 40 mg intravenously. Vasoactivity attributed to suxamethonium and loss of consciousness were noted. Cardiorespiratory effects of unsupplemented fentanyl 0.5 mg injected slowly were not significant in four chronically azotaemic patients. After morphine 100 mg was administered intravenously over a period of 10 minutes a characteristic fall in arterial oxygen tension was observed to a more pronounced degree than after fentanyl. Carbon dioxide responses were similar. There were no delayed sequelae in the fentanyl recipients. After morphine 100 mg there was a latent period of freedom from clinical side effects for 6 hours in the first and 95 minutes in the second patient, at which times deep coma persisting for 72 hours supervened in both. Lowenstein and his colleagues (1969) have used single intravenous doses of morphine 1 mg/kg and Grell, Koons and Denson (1970) reported on the use of fentanyl 0.5 mg to provide anaesthesia for major surgery. Fentanyl is generally preferred because it is ultra-short-acting in comparison with morphine (Guertner, Doenicke and Spiess, 1964). Finch and DeKornfeld (1967) found that the duration of action of equipotent doses of the two drugs was similar in two postoperative studies in which fentanyl 0.05 mg and 0.2 mg respectively were compared in each instance with morphine 10 mg. We designed an experimental study to compare the duration of measurable effects of fentanyl 0.5 mg and morphine 100 mg in patients with endstage renal disease being treated by haemodialysis. These metabolically deficient patients were chosen because the sparing effects which Lowenstein and associates (1969) noted to be associated with morphine anaesthesia suggested to us that it might be the most suitable anaesthetic for the increasing number of surgical procedures which are being performed in these patients.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.