1Royal North Shore Hospital of Sydney, St Leonards, NSW, Australia. 2Department of Anaesthesia, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia*Corresponding author: Intensive Therapy Unit, Royal North Shore Hospital, Pacific Highway, St Leonards, NSW 2065, Australia
Accepted for publication: January 3, 2001
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Abstract |
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Br J Anaesth 2001; 86: 67882
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Introduction |
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Rare adverse effects of drugs, such as anaphylaxis, do not usually become apparent until the drug is established in clinical usage. It may be misrepresented (higher or lower) by small numbers of reactors until the drug has been observed extensively after release on to the market. In addition, estimation of prevalence requires knowledge of both numbers of reactors and total numbers of doses given in the population. Estimation of the number of reactors is hampered by difficulty in definitive diagnosis and referral of reactors, while the number of doses of a drug given is at best an estimate from drug sales data.
Another method of assessing the relative likelihood of a new neuromuscular blocking drug (NMBD) to cause anaphylaxis is to determine cutaneous sensitivity in a population of patients known to be relaxant reactors.2
Rocuronium was introduced in Australia in 1996. It is a monoquaternary NMBD that shares its aminosteroid structure with pancuronium and vecuronium, which are less likely to produce anaphylaxis than other NMBDs.2 3 In addition, rocuronium causes less direct histamine release than the benzylisoquinolinium-derived NMBDs, such as atracurium and mivacurium.4 An early French study5 of cutaneous sensitivity in NMBD reactors suggested that rocuronium may be more likely to cause anaphylaxis than the other aminosteroid drugs. Subsequently, three anaphylactic reactions were reported in 2000 uses in the UK.6 Concern has been expressed in Australia regarding an apparently high number of anaphylactic reactions to rocuronium.
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Methods and patient selection |
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Criteria for anaphylaxis
Patients were suspected to have had an anaphylactic event when the condition was life-threatening and involved two or more of the classic signs of anaphylaxis: hypotension, bronchospasm, dermatological signs (erythema, rash or urticaria) and angio-oedema. The diagnosis was regarded as confirmed if results of intradermal testing, radioimmunoassay (RIA) or mast cell tryptase (MCT) testing were positive.7 Mast cell tryptase is the single most useful test to confirm an anaphylactic event,810 whereas the most valuable test to determine the identity of the responsible agent is intradermal testing. RIA testing can also help to identify a responsible agent, especially when intradermal tests are negative.8 Patients whose reactions were severe and clinically likely to be anaphylaxis but whose reactions involved a single organ system were admitted to the database only if there was supporting laboratory evidence.
Testing
Intradermal testing,8 11 MCT testing12 and morphine RIA testing for IgE antibodies to NMBDs13 were performed according to published protocols.
Intradermal testing was performed 46 weeks after the reaction using appropriate dilutions of drugs that have been found to be unlikely to produce local false-positive reactions as a result of direct histamine release. Concentrations of the drugs used are presented in Table 1. The skin was lightly cleaned with isopropyl alcohol, the skin beneath the test site also being cleaned with isopropyl alcohol to exclude sensitivity to the skin preparation. A syringe with the drug dilution was attached to a 25 gauge needle, which was introduced through the skin at an angle of 10° with the bevel uppermost, until the lumen was covered. Sufficient solution was then injected to raise a 12 mm weal (0.010.02 ml). Normal saline was used as a control to exclude dermatographism, while 0.001% morphine sulphate in normal saline, which gives a weal and flare in all patients with normal cutaneous responsiveness, was used to assess whether a negative test was a result of impaired responsiveness. The intradermal test was recorded as positive when a weal of more than 0.8 cm arose within 10 min and persisted for 30 min or longer.
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MCT assays were performed using commercially available kits (Pharmacia, Sydney, Australia). Each patient had blood taken by the referring anaesthetist and the serum was forwarded to our laboratory for testing. Because tryptase levels begin to rise within 30 min of an anaphylactic reaction and remain high for approximately 6 h, blood samples were taken between half an hour and 6 h after the reaction. In six patients with either a negative MCT or no MCT result, a convincing clinical picture of anaphylaxis together with a positive morphine RIA or intradermal test was considered sufficient to establish the diagnosis. It has been observed that tryptase assays can be elevated by causes other than anaphylaxis, such as vancomycin administration. In our study, however, all patients with a positive MCT also had corroborating clinical and laboratory evidence of anaphylaxis to rocuronium.
Morphine RIA testing was performed using morphine sulphate coupled to Sepharose to detect anti-quaternary ammonium IgE in serum. Morphine RIA is the most appropriate in vitro test for the detection of IgE antibodies that cross-react with substituted ammonium ions and hence for the in vitro diagnosis of NMBD-induced anaphylaxis.8
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Results |
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Discussion |
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Fundamentally, the incidence of anaphylaxis to any particular NMBD will be determined by the market share (or number of uses) of the drug and the size of the population who are allergic, i.e. the number who have IgE antibodies to the drug.
The incidence of anaphylaxis to rocuronium closely follows the increase in usage of this NMBD (Fig. 1); the overall number of reactions and the number of reactions to other relaxants appears to be falling. This is reflected in data on patients seen at the Anaesthetic Allergy clinic between January and June 2000, among whom there were eight reactions to rocuronium and only three to all other NMBDs.
The reduction in reactions to other NMBDs is not a phenomenon reported or observed previously and is an important consideration in the relative safety of NMBDs. One would expect that if a drug of intermediate risk of producing anaphylaxis gained such a proportion of the market and displaced higher-risk drugs such as succinylcholine, the overall incidence of anaphylaxis should fall, and we suspect this is occurring with the increasing use of rocuronium in Australia.
There were 20 females and four males in our study, a female preponderance similar to that in patients allergic to other NMBDs in our database. This marked preponderance of females, usually of the order of 4:1, has been noted in other studies of anaphylaxis to NMBDs.2 5 14 15
RIA testing for morphine antibodies has now simplified RIA testing for NMBD allergy, as the single substituted ammonium group is common to the structures of both morphine and NMBDs. As a result, it is much more efficient to use the morphine RIA to test for IgE antibodies to NMBDs as a group than to use specific NMBD RIAs.8
A previous study2 examined individual cutaneous relaxant sensitivity in a population of patients who reacted to NMBDs, and the results suggested that in Australia succinylcholine and alcuronium were high-risk drugs (over 40% of the NMBD-allergic population were sensitive) and vecuronium and pancuronium were low-risk drugs (fewer than 10% of NMBD-allergic patients were sensitive). These data appeared to reflect the described incidences of severe clinical reactions in the two large published series in Australia and France.2 3
Data from our analysis (Fig. 2) confirm these general trends. We have divided the NMBDs into high-, intermediate- and low-risk drugs in the population of relaxant-sensitive patients. These divisions, of course, are arbitrary and exact percentages of reaction depend very much on the sample size (number tested) for each drug. With the possible exception of decamethonium (only 10 tested, four positive) the numbers tested give a good indication of the relative risk of each agent. NMBDs with a high risk (>40%) of causing anaphylaxis in the relaxant-sensitive population were alcuronium, succinylcholine, d-tubocurarine and decamethonium. Intermediate-risk (2040%) agents were atracurium/cisatracurium, rocuronium, mivacurium and gallamine. As expected, the two low-risk agents were vecuronium and pancuronium.
Allergy to NMBDs is due to the cross-linking of cell-bound IgE molecules by the substituted ammonium groups that provide the neuromuscular blocking effects of these drugs.14 It is not, therefore, surprising that cross-sensitivity between NMBDs occurs. Indeed, it is more difficult to determine why patients allergic to one NMBD are not allergic to all NMBDs, yet of 410 patients allergic to NMBDs in the database only two had cutaneous sensitivity to all NMBDs tested.
The length of the carbon chain between active groups, the three-dimensional structure and the nature of binding of immunoglobulin may partially explain differences between individual agents. Differences in antigenantibody binding strength may vary, but why this strength should be different when the antigen is so similar remains unclear. From previous data, cross-sensitivity between NMBDs has been estimated to occur in up to 60% of patients.16 17
We tested only a small number of reactors to other NMBDs with rocuronium to ascertain cross-sensitivity (Table 3). It is not possible to draw conclusions from these data, as the numbers tested were too small. It is interesting to observe, however, that the NMBDs with which there was some cross-reactivity included other members of the aminosteroid class of relaxants (such as vecuronium, pancuronium), to which rocuronium is most closely related structurally, and not the benzylisoquinolinium group, which includes atracurium, cisatracurium and mivacurium, which are structurally dissimilar to rocuronium.
When the known rocuronium reactors underwent skin tests to other NMBDs (Table 4), the results were not as expected. The incidence of cross-sensitivity to relaxants of the aminosteroid family was lower than that to the benzylisoquinolinium family. Structural similarity was expected to result in rocuronium reactors reacting most frequently with other relaxants of the aminosteroid family.
These results differ substantially from those of Laxenaire et al.,5 which showed a very high incidence of cross-sensitivity using a 101 dilution of rocuronium (10 mg ml1) administered on the back. Levy et al.18 studied weal and flare responses to cisatracurium and rocuronium on the forearm, and showed that concentrations such as those used by Laxenaire et al. produce a high incidence of false positives. It is generally believed that greater concentrations should be used on the back than on the forearm. However, in our experience there is minimal difference. Skin testing on the back using the same dilutions as those recommended for testing on the forearm is the standard method in New Zealand.
In conclusion, our experience suggests no cause for alarm about anaphylaxis to rocuronium. Our database shows that the rate of anaphylaxis is rising in proportion to usage of the drug, not out of proportion to it. Rocuronium is intermediate in reactivity in relaxant-sensitive patients.
The structure of rocuronium closely resembles that of the other aminosteroid NMBDsvecuronium and pancuronium. Whilst rocuronium is not a high-risk agent in terms of anaphylaxis in the relaxant-sensitive population, it is significant that there is a distinct variation from its nearest relatives in its propensity to cause anaphylaxis in this population.
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Acknowledgements |
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References |
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