propofol infusion syndrome

Specialties Neuro

Published

Propofol should not be used for long term sedation. Few people know of this deadly drug reaction

Many Europen countries know the truth about this very unpredicable drug.It's time to open honest discusion about it's shortcommings here.

This the latest warning from medwatch on propofol and the syndrome.

http://www.fda.gov/medwatch/safety/2007/feb07.htm. There have been many more cases of this than reported mainly due to ignorance and the lack of warning from astra zenica. This has been known since 1992 .Norway was the first to recognize it.

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Here is new source I found.It identifies the syndrome very well.

http://pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/anesb/fulltext.00000524-200707000-00009.htm

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Specializes in CVICU, ICU, RRT, CVPACU.

In my opinion the benefits of this drug outweigh the risks in many cases. Some of this research is pretty poor in my opinion. You could potentially pick this to death if you had to. One study metions that to date there are only 14 known cases of it, another lists some very broad symptoms that could be associated with many, many other conditions and another study even lists this as being very rare. I do agree that it definately has renal risks and increased risk of infection. We see rhabdo a lot with it when ran at higher rates for over 48 hours. Our facility monitors labs for this and makes an attempt to switch to our "sedation protocol" to minimize its use. Our sedation protocol involves fentanyl drips, versed drips, ativan, morphine and about anything else we need.

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Specializes in Intensive Care.
Propofol should not be used for long term sedation. Few people know of this deadly drug reaction

Many Europen countries know the truth about this very unpredicable drug.It's time to open honest discusion about it's shortcommings here.

HI

I am an ICU nurse educator in Sydney Australia - we had one such case several years ago and since then we cap our propofol infusions @ a max of 20ml/hr - we only use it for short term sedation - generally use midazolam for longer term if not contraindicated. Propofol is great in small doses for agitated neurotrauma pts due to its short half life so easy to wake them up to assess them....:dzed:

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Hi, my father was recently involved with Propofol infusion syndrome and so were two other paitents in the same ICU. He was given propofol for over 72 hours and was not evaulated during that time. He had all of the classic symptoms, ie: did not wake up after the drug was discontinued, liver, kiidney and heart failure, green urine, basically in a coma..The "specialists" ran dozens of tests, brain cat scans, eeg's, etc., but the "specialists" said that they could not explain why he was not waking up. That's when I started doing research myself and found bulletins on pis on the FDA and NIH websites. I printed out the bulletins and presented a copy to each of the "specialists"..I wish I had a picture of the look on their faces after they read the first two paragraphs of the NIH bulletin..Improper use of this drug must be stopped now!

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Gay,

We hope your father made it.Our son came down with it and the doctors gave up on him. he to never woke up after propofol was discontinued. A nurse came in and put him through pain tests and of course he never moved. He was parlized from the drug.They even discontinued his cardiovascular drug support unknown to us just before this .He died a few hours later after his heart went into asytole.

What do professionals call when patients are put on comfort care without the families knowledge?

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Sorry to hear that John. My dad eventually woke up after more than two weeks of being on intense support. He is now recovering in a nursing facility. We have not told him about his ordeal yet. He is missing an entire month and does not understand what happened..

Have you taken any legal action with respect to astra zenica or the facility?

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Well, the doctors at this facility would not give up on my dad, because they knew that I knew that it was the propofol that caused the problems and they didn't want a huge suit. My daughter is a corporate attorney and is quite good at presenting these types of cases.. That may have had something to do with why they tried so hard.

Did they at least do an EEG on your son? How did they evaulate that he had no brain function? If they did not do a proper evaulation, that would be a huge no no.. Do you have an attorney?

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HI

I am an ICU nurse educator in Sydney Australia - we had one such case several years ago and since then we cap our propofol infusions @ a max of 20ml/hr - we only use it for short term sedation - generally use midazolam for longer term if not contraindicated. Propofol is great in small doses for agitated neurotrauma pts due to its short half life so easy to wake them up to assess them....:dzed:

That's if the pts are assessed. I know of cases where pts were kept on propofol > than 48 hours with no assessment. One was over 72 hours..

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Im so glad to hear your father survived the syndrome

Before he died the nurse checked his pupils ,we were right there ,they were reacting normaly and equal.he just could not move physicaly or talk.

I think our son to would have survived but the doctor's denied him survival care. They also denied he had the complication. There was little I could do about what happened to our son . I came here afterwards and tried to spread the word on this problem. It seems alot of hosptials know about this and avoid it. That is very good news.The hosptial where it happened was told about what we found out through a private doctor but has not responded(denial) in any way. From posts I have read about the hosptial I doubt they took any action whatever and it's probably still going on.

The medical board found a doctor to refute all our doctor's findings including the PRIS.They told me they don't get involved in these issues.I also had little luck in persuing a case aginst Astrazenica although a attorney sat on it and called the day the statue expired and asked if I ever found another lawyer.

The doctor who helped me said a blackbox warning is definitly needed to prevent further injurys and deaths.Im working with a major consumer magizine now to hopefully bring this issue forward.Our doctor feels it definitly is needed since it has gone generic.

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It's time we took this thread off this forum..My email address is [email protected] if you want to continue this exchange. I think I may be able to help you.

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Ive had no luck in contacting you on yahoo.let me know if my emails have gotten through or not. Thanks

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