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We hypothesized that an intracarotid bolus injection of propofol to produce electroencephalographic (EEG) silence would require a smaller dose of the drug compared with the continuous infusion of the drug. Furthermore, the bolus propofol dose will be a function of the bolus characteristics in each bolus (mass/volume). We compared the dose requirements of intracarotid propofol needed to maintain EEG silence when delivered as bolus injections to continuous infusions in rabbits. Subsequently, we compared whether four different bolus characteristics (concentration and volume) of propofol (0.33% x 0.1 mL, 0.33% x 0.3 mL, 1% x 0.1 mL, and 1% x 0.3 mL) affected the dose required to produce EEG silence. We found that the infusion rate of propofol required to sustain EEG silence was three-fold larger than the dose required by bolus injections, 22.8 ± 11.9 vs 6.2 ± 2.9 mL/h for infusion versus bolus, respectively (n = 7, P < 0.004). Furthermore, during bolus injection, the doses of propofol required to produce EEG silence were a direct function of the bolus volume and the mass of drug in each bolus, total dose = 3.6 + 29 x mg/bolus, n = 32, r = 0.85. For maximum regional effects of the bolus intracarotid drug injection, the bolus characteristics (volume and drug concentration) have to be optimized.
Bolus intracarotid injections of anesthetic drugs are extensively used in diagnostic radiology during Wada testing for the location of neurological functions (1). Propofol is a highly protein-bound, lipid soluble, short-acting anesthetic drug that in recent years has been used for the Wada test (24). However, the theoretical factors that affect dose-response to bolus injection of propofol and other anesthetic drugs have not yet been fully investigated. In theory, bolus injections of drugs could transiently overwhelm the cerebral blood flow to minimize, or even eliminate, any protein binding. Thus, bolus intraarterial injections could produce disproportionately large free drug concentrations (5). Intraarterial bolus injection of benzodiazepines produces 525-fold larger cerebral arterial blood and brain tissue concentrations than those predicted by the kinetic models (6). Therefore, we hypothesized that bolus injections of a highly protein-bound, lipid-soluble drug, such as propofol, will be superior to continuous intracarotid infusion. Furthermore, because of the relatively small arterial dead space, the effects of bolus intracarotid injections of anesthetic will be a function of the volume of the injection and the concentration of the drug therein. During the Wada test, the volume of injection is essentially determined by angiographic distribution of the drug and/or the occurrence of neurological symptoms. A considerable variation in dose-response and drug-distribution of intracarotid anesthetics has been reported during the Wada test (7). Thus, it is important to investigate the dose response to bolus intracarotid injections of anesthetic drugs. Nonanesthetic drugs are also frequently delivered via the intracarotid route for research, diagnostic, and therapeutic purposes (8,9). If bolus characteristics significantly affect the drug response, then there would also be a need to optimize these characteristics for maximum therapeutic results. To test our hypothesis, we evaluated the effects of intracarotid bolus injection of propofol on electrocerebral activity in New Zealand White rabbits (10,11). These animals have a primate-like separation of the internal carotid and the external carotid arteries (12). We elected to use propofol because of the recent interest in this drug for Wada testing. In addition, intraarterial injection of propofol is fairly well tolerated by the vascular endothelium (13).
After approval of the protocol by the institution's animal care and use committee, the study was conducted on New Zealand White rabbits weighing approximately 34 lbs. The animals were given full access to food and water before the experiment. The animals were sedated with intramuscular ketamine (50 mg/kg) and anesthesia was maintained with IV infusion of propofol (Diprivan 1%; Astra-Zeneca Pharmaceuticals Inc. Wilmington, DE) 12 mL x kg1 x h1, fentanyl 12 µg x kg1 x h1 and vecuronium bromide (1020 µg x kg1 x h1). This infusion rate of IV propofol is significantly smaller than the dose of the drug required to produce sustained EEG silence (24 ± mL/h) and provides a level of anesthesia that enables monitoring of electroencephalographic (EEG) activity over several hours (11). Hence, the background sedation is unlikely to affect the outcome of this study. A certain degree of background sedation is mandatory for animal experiments thus the minimal confounding effect, if any, of the background anesthetics cannot be avoided during the experiments. Our experimental preparation consisted of tracheostomy, femoral arterial cannulation, isolation of the right internal carotid artery, placement of bilateral EEG leads, and bilateral skull shaving to the inner table for the placement of laser Doppler probes to monitor cerebral blood flows. All surgical sites were infiltrated with 0.25% bupivacaine with epinephrine, and an esophageal temperature probe monitored the core temperature. The technical details of our preparation have been described in earlier publications (10,11). Hemodynamic and cerebral blood-flow variables for each drug challenge were evaluated at three stages of the experiment: (1) at baseline, (2) EEG silence with propofol, and (3) EEG recovery to baseline amplitude and morphology.
Protocol 1: Bolus versus Continuous Infusion
In four preliminary studies for this protocol, we observed that the dose requirement of intraarterial propofol infusion was exceedingly large (
Protocol 2: Bolus Configuration Studies Based on the preliminary experiments, we designed the study protocol to safely undertake repeat experiments on the same animal. We reduced the number of challenges to give additional recovery time to the preparation. We selected four doses that used two concentrations (0.33% and 1%) and two volumes (0.1 and 0.3 mL). We then generated three doses 0.33, 1.0, and 3 mg. Using balanced randomization each bolus configuration was injected twice either first, second, third, or fourth. We also reduced the period of EEG silence from 10 to 5 min to decrease the amount of intracarotid propofol. There was a 30-min rest period between each intracarotid drug challenge. The initial loading, maintenance, and total doses were determined as described above.
Data Analysis
Protocol 1 The experiments were conducted on seven animals with a mean weight of 3.0 ± 0.6 lbs. The initial propofol loading dose was similar (0.30 ± 0.19 and 0.27 ± 0.17 mg) in the bolus and infusion groups, respectively, P = 0.77, n = 7. The propofol doses that were required to sustain EEG silence significantly differed with the mode of drug delivery, 6.2 ± 2.9 versus 22.8 ± 11.9 mL/h for bolus versus infusion, respectively (n = 7, P < 0.004). The hemodynamic variables did not differ with either of the two modes of propofol delivery, Table 1.
Protocol 2
Baseline hemodynamic variables were similar across animals and across the four drug challenges, Table 3. There was no difference in the hemodynamic effects of the four challenges, Table 3. The mean arterial blood pressure decreased during EEG silence with all three challenges but was not different among the different bolus configurations. Laser Doppler bloodflow showed no consistent relationship with bolus doses of propofol, although flows were more rapid during silence with 1% drug concentrations, but this was not significant (Table 3).
This study yielded two notable results. First, the mode of intracarotid drug delivery has a significant impact on the propofol dose required to maintain EEG silence. Compared with steady-state infusion, bolus injection of propofol was able to achieve EEG silence with a significantly smaller dose. Second, we observed that the intracarotid propofol dose required to produce 5 min of EEG silence was a direct function of the bolus dose. Both the concentration and volume of the drug bolus had a significant effect on the dose requirements of intracarotid propofol.
The fundamental kinetics of intracarotid bolus injection of drugs, despite extensive use in clinical neuroradiology, remains relatively uninvestigated. There are few tools available to track rapid changes in drug concentrations after bolus injections of intracarotid drugs. Our model that monitors the EEG response to intracarotid anesthetics provides valuable insights into the kinetics of intracarotid drugs particularly after bolus delivery. Despite factors such as acute tolerance to anesthetic effects, monitoring the dose of anesthetics required to achieve and maintain EEG activity at the threshold of silence provides a convenient indirect measure of tissue drug concentration that can be tracked in real time (14,15). To compare the effects of bolus versus continuous infusion of intracarotid propofol, we had to ensure that there was no delay in the delivery of the drug after the initial loading dose had been injected. We took several precautions to prevent any delay in drug injection. We assessed the pump functions against the resistance imposed by the P-50 arterial cannula. To prevent any delay due to the engagement of the clutch of the infusion pump, we primed the catheter and continuously discharged the infusion pump externally through a parallel cannula. Thus, during drug infusions, propofol was delivered as soon as the stopcock was turned on. It takes 12 s for an intraarterial injection to transit the cerebral tissue and reach the venous side. Thus, if the catheter is adequately primed and the pump is operational there will be negligible (
Jones et al. (6) investigated the kinetics of bolus injection of benzodiazepines and found that the tissue drug concentrations were 525-fold larger than those predicted by parallel in vitro studies. They offered several kinetic explanations for their results; however, they overlooked the possibility that they could have injected pure drugs to the brain. Their experiment involved bolus injection of 0.150.2 mL of drug volume into a rat's common carotid artery. The rat internal carotid probably irrigates less than 1 g of brain tissue and the internal carotid flow is probably
Our results show a very significant difference in dose requirements of intracarotid propofol when given as an infusion compared with bolus injection. Propofol is protein-bound (98%) and lipid-soluble with an octanol/water partition coefficient of In the second part of this study (protocol 2), we observed that the concentration of the drug and the volume of the bolus affected the initial loading, maintenance and total intracarotid propofol dose required to produce 5 min of EEG silence. It should be noted that in protocol 1, when we used the same volume of the bolus (0.1 mL) there was no difference between bolus or infusion challenges. However, in protocol 2, different volumes of initial loading doses were used, which resulted in a difference in the amount of initial loading dose needed to achieve EEG silence. This probably reflects the tissue propofol concentrations generated by different bolus volume to arterial dead space ratios. In theory, a smaller volume better provides the target dose if the time lapse between boluses is not excessive. Critical to the understanding of bolus kinetics of the drugs is understanding the mechanics of the injection. Measurements in healthy rabbits indicate a cerebral blood volume of 1.93 mL/100g (16). Further assuming that the intracarotid injection irrigates 5 g of tissue, we estimate that the total blood volume in a unilateral internal carotid irrigation is <0.1 mL. However, in addition to cerebral tissue blood volume, there is a comparable amount of blood in extracranial and intracranial arteries. We, therefore, estimated that the total blood volume in our experimental conditions was between 0.2 to 0.3 mL. Thus, injection of 0.1 and 0.3 mL used in our studies would have largely been contained in the arterial dead space and would have certainly delivered relatively undiluted drug to the brain. In clinical settings, drugs are regularly administered to humans at the rates of 110 mL/s during cerebral angiography. Such a rate of injection is sufficient to transiently overwhelm carotid blood flow and deliver relatively pure drug to the brain. In concurrent studies in our laboratory, we are assessing the possibility of videoimaging drug concentrations in the brain after intracarotid delivery. Figure 3, ac shows transit of 0.1 mL of a propofol bolus through the arteries and the veins. The pictures were taken 1 s before, during, and 1 s after the completion of the injection. These pictures show that even a 0.1 mL volume transiently, although completely, displaces the blood in the cerebral arteries. Such images would suggest that protein binding would be relatively unimportant with bolus drug delivery.
The primary advantage of bolus injection of drugs is the fairly consistent regional distribution of the drug (18). Bolus injections also deliver a consistently large concentration and avoid regional variations in drug concentrations due to streaming (1921). However, the disadvantage of bolus delivery is the limited uptake through the blood-brain barrier during the short time it transits the brain. In theory, if the concentration of drug exceeds the maximum uptake by the brain in that transit period, then the extra amount of drug will simply overflow to the venous side. This would increase systemic side effects and decrease regional selectivity. Delivering bolus drugs in amounts that exceed brain uptake and in volumes that exceed cerebral arterial blood volume would decrease the efficiency of bolus injection. Thus, ideally, for maximum regional delivery, the bolus of the drug has to be tailored to the kinetic factors that determine brain uptake; the anatomical factors, such as arterial dead space, that determine bolus volume; and the flow factors that determine effective concentrations and transit times. Our results suggest that a bolus dose of intracarotid propofol is more effective in causing EEG silence than continuous infusion. This study also shows that the configuration of the bolus has a significant effect on the dose requirement of intracarotid drugs. Thanks are due to Richard Arrington, BA, Cert. AT, Manager of Anesthesiology Services, for helping with technical aspects of the experiments.
Accepted for publication December 16, 2005. This work was supported in part by National Institutes of Health Grant K08-00698 and the Irving Clinical Research Career Award from the Irving Center for Clinical Research (to SJ). This work was presented in part at the annual meeting of the Society of Neurosurgical Anesthesia and Critical Care in Las Vegas, Nevada on October 21, 2004.
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