A within-subject comparison of seizure duration with etomidate and methohexital in electroconvulsive therapy
Psychiatry, Neurology, Radiology, and Anatomy & Neurobiology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, United States
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Anesthesiology and Pain Management, Psychiatry and Psychology
- Keywords
- electroconvulsive therapy, etomidate, methohexital, seizures, seizure duration
- Copyright
- © 2013 Black
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
- Cite this article
- 2013. A within-subject comparison of seizure duration with etomidate and methohexital in electroconvulsive therapy. PeerJ PrePrints 1:e87v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.87v1
Abstract
Objective: To determine whether etomidate is associated with longer seizures than methohexital in ECT anesthesia. Methods: Retrospective chart review in 39 patients who were switched from one anesthetic to the other. We compared motor and EEG seizure duration in the last ECT session on one anesthetic and the first session on the other anesthetic. Results: Motor seizures were about 10 seconds longer with etomidate (p < 0.05). However, few of the increases in seizure duration had obvious clinical import. Conclusions: Etomidate can lengthen ECT seizure time compared with methohexital, but the clinical significance of this observation requires further study.