By using a patient-controlled epidural analgesia technique, ropivacaine 0.125% with fentanyl 2 microg/mL produces similar analgesia with significantly less motor block than a similar concentration of bupivacaine with fentanyl during labor. Whether this statistical reduction in motor block improves clinical outcome or is applicable to anesthesia practices which do not use the patient-controlled epidural analgesia technique remains to be determined.

The 10-microg intrathecal neostigmine dose alone produced no analgesia or side effects, but reduced the ED50 of intrathecal sufentanil by approximately 25%. Additionally, doses approximately double these ED50s each produced a similar duration of analgesia and side effects, indicating intrathecal neostigmine shifts the dose-response curve for intrathecal sufentanil to the left.

Spinal neostigmine 10 microg as an adjunct to spinal bupivacaine, clonidine, and sufentanil produces severe nausea and fails to potentiate analgesia in laboring women.

No abstract