The Effects of Local Anesthetic Agent and Epinephrine on Blood Flow of Femoral Artery in Rabbit

Many surgeons and anesthesiologists prefer using vasoconstrictor mixed with local anesthetic agent to reduce the incidence of side effects and prolong the duration of analgesia because most local anesthetic agents, except cocaine, were believed to possess vasodilating effect. However, some investigators recently reported vasoconstricting effect of local anesthetic agents. There is still controversy on the vasoactive effect of local anesthetic agents. So this study is aimed to clarify the vasoactive effect of local anesthetics in the animal model resembling clinical settings. Rabbits were anesthesized with ketamine and haloghane, and respirations were controlled with Harvard animal ventilator. Lidocaine (0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5%) and bupivacaine (0.125%, 0.25% and 0.5%) with or without 1:100,000 epinephrine were subdermaly injected on the femoral bupivacaine of the femoral artery were measured with Doppler flow meter in vivo. The mean arterial pressure, pulse rate, arterial blood gases, pH and level of serum electrolytes were measured at every 2 minute interval for 30 minutes. Results were as follows: 1) There was no significant vasoconstriction with 0.5% lidocaine and 0.125% bupivacaine. 2) Statistically significant (p