DO BARBITURATES PROTECT THE BRAIN?

High dose barbiturates in non-traumatic brain swelling.

High dose barbiturates were used to treat intracranial hypertension in 15 patients with nontraumatic brain lesions; (3 hypertensive hemorrhage, 4 subarachnoid hemorrhage, 5 infarction, 2 global anoxia-ischemia and 2 encephalitis). All had persistently raised intracranial pressure (ICP) while being treated with aggressive conventional therapy. The addition of barbiturates caused an initial lower...

Amelioration of post-ischemic brain damage with barbiturates.

PERHAPS THERE IS NO major pathological state so profound in its damaging effects on the sufferer, on his family, and on society as the brain injury produced by cardiac arrest, ischemic stroke, or other anoxic states. Thus, there is great interest among physicians and the lay public in experimental results which suggest a protective effect against brain damage after either focal or global brain ...

Barbiturates.

Twenty years trying to protect the brain: what do we know?

Thirty-five years ago at the Nixon Watergate hearings, a young attorney named Fred Thompson, current US presidential candidate, asked "What did the President know and when did he know it?" A couple of word changes and this question would be appropriate to ask any number of surgical specialties regarding negative neurologic outcomes. Even today, some specialties are in denial about impaired brai...

Ischemic brain edema: comparative effects of barbiturates and hypothermia.

The effect of pentobarbital and hypothermia on the development of ischemic brain edema was studied in 23 rhesus monkeys undergoing transorbital middle cerebral artery occlusion. Fifteen additional animals served as unclipped controls. Regional cortical cerebral blood flow (rCBF), arteriovenous oxygen content difference (AVDO2), and regional cortical metabolic rate of O2 (rCMRO2) were measured h...