Skip Navigation


BJA Advance Access originally published online on August 30, 2009
British Journal of Anaesthesia 2009 103(5):719-725; doi:10.1093/bja/aep237
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
103/5/719    most recent
aep237v1
Right arrow E-Letters: Submit a response to the article
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Related articles in BJA
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Lee, W. Y.
Right arrow Articles by Kim, H. J.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Lee, W. Y.
Right arrow Articles by Kim, H. J.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?


© The Author [2009]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Journal of Anaesthesia. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournal.org

Only tetracaine and not other local anaesthetics induce apoptosis in rat cortical astrocytes

W. Y. Lee1,{dagger}, C. J. Park2,{dagger}, T. J. Shin1,{dagger}, K. W. Yum1, T. G. Yoon3, K. S. Seo1 and H. J. Kim1,*

1 Department of Dental Anesthesiology and Dental Research Institute, School of Dentistry, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
2 Department of Dentistry, Division of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, College of Medicine, Hanyang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
3 Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, School of Medicine, Konkuk University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

* Corresponding author. E-mail: dentane{at}snu.ac.kr

Background: The potential risks of neurotoxicity due to local anaesthetics after regional anaesthesia have been suggested recently. To evaluate the neurotoxicity of commonly used local anaesthetics, primary cultured rat cortical astrocytes were treated with lidocaine, ropivacaine, bupivacaine, levobupivacaine, and tetracaine.

Methods: Cell death after local anaesthetic treatment was evaluated with a lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) assay. To examine the mechanisms of cell death, reactive oxygen species (ROS) measurement and western blots of poly-ADP ribose polymerase (PARP), procaspase-3, and mitogen-activated protein kinases family members were performed.

Results: Of the local anaesthetics, which were applied at <1 mM for 18 h, only tetracaine significantly increased LDH leakage (P<0.05) and cell death in a dose- and time-dependent manner. Hoechst 33258–propidium iodide staining and western blots with PARP and procaspase-3 antibodies suggested that tetracaine induced apoptosis. ROS levels increased 2-fold at 30 min after tetracaine treatment compared with the control and then decreased. The antioxidants, N-acetylcysteine and trolox, markedly inhibited tetracaine-induced apoptosis.

Conclusions: Tetracaine induced apoptosis through ROS generation. Further studies focusing on the neurotoxicity of tetracaine are needed.

Keywords: anaesthetics local, tetracaine; complications, neurological; toxicity, local anaesthetics

{dagger} W.Y.L. and C.J.P. contributed equally to this study.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?

Related articles in BJA:

In the November 2009 BJA...

BJA 2009 103: NP. [Extract] [Full Text]  





Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.