The Study of Treatment for the Inhibition of Cardiac Function due to Levobupivacine

Abstract

Levobupivacaine is a long acting, amide-type local anaesthetic that is the S(−)-isomer of the racemate bupivacaine. It has high affinity for the myocardial Na⁺ channel that can be cardiotoxic. So, an intravenous injection of levobupivacaine sometimes becomes a serious problem as the inhibition of cardiac function.
Then, we investigated the effects of cardiac pacing and catecholamines(epinephrine, norepinephrine, isoproterenol) to treat the inhibition of cardiac function in isolated rat hearts.
Our results showed that cardiac pacing and 0.8μg/kg/min epinephrine recovered the inhibition of cardiac function due to 5μg/ml levobupivacaine.