Urapidil zur Therapie von postanästhetischem Shivering nach Allgemeinanästhesie Eine placebokontrollierte Pilotstudie

Objective. Postanaesthetic shivering is common during recovery from general anaesthesia. Therefore we studied whether urapidil suppresses postanaesthetic shivering. Methods. With written informed consent and approval of the local ethics committee, patients (ASA I-II) recovering from general anaesthesia were monitored for 1 h. Patients with continuous shivering for a period of 5 min were randomly treated either with 5 ml placebo (isotonic saline) or 25 mg urapidil in a double-blind trial.This treatment procedure was repeated if shivering did not stop. A complete suppression of shivering was appraised as a sufficient treatment. Results. Shivering occurred in 20 of the patients studied and urapidil stopped shivering in 7 out ofthe 10 treated patients, whereas the placebo stopped shivering in only 2 out of 10 patients (P<0.05). Conclusion. In a placebo controlled trial, it was demonstrated that postanaesthetic shivering can be successfully treated by urapidil in 70% of the patients.