Levobupivacaine Hydrochloride

A national survey was conducted among maternity hospitals nationwide to understand the variability in clinical practice for obstetric analgesia and to reach a consensus on optimal care in the future in Spain.

Spanish experts in obstetric anesthesiology designed a survey on the practice of obstetric analgesia during childbirth, following a Delphi process. The survey was sent to 195 Spanish maternity hospitals between April and September 2022 using Google Forms. A descriptive study of the results was performed.

Responses were obtained from 108 centres (55.4%), of which 88 (83.8%) were public hospitals. The most commonly used technique was epidural analgesia in 97 (92.4%) centres. Nine (8.6%) centres used the combined spinal-epidural (CSE) technique, 5 (4.8%) used spinal analgesia, and 3 (2.9%) used dural puncture epidural (DPE) analgesia. The most commonly used local anaesthetic was levobupivacaine 0.1-0.25% in 82 (78.1%) centres. Fentanyl or sufentanil were added to the local anaesthetic in 96 (91.4%) centres. Epidural maintenance was performed with continuous epidural infusion (CEI) + patient-controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA) or programmed intermittent epidural bolus (PIEB) + PCEA in 64 (60.9%) and 33 (30.5%) centres, respectively. Fifteen (14.3%) centres lacked alternative techniques to epidural analgesia and 25 (23.8%) did not follow obstetric analgesia protocols.

Despite the variability in clinical practice for obstetric analgesia in Spain, the vast majority of centres follow recommendations in this field. There is room for improvement, which should be considered a fundamental strategy for progressing towards excellence.

Increasing use of pigs as models in translational research, and growing focus on animal welfare are leading to better use of effective analgesics and anaesthetics when painful procedures are performed. However, there is a gap in basic knowledge such as pharmacokinetics of different anaesthetics in these species. The main objective of our study was to determine the pharmacokinetics of levobupivacaine in domestic pigs. Twelve female grower pigs weighing 31.17 ± 4.6 kg were subjected to general anaesthesia and experimental surgery, at the end of which they received 1 mg/kg levobupivacaine via peri-incisional subcutaneous infiltration. Plasma samples were collected before administration of levobupivacaine and at 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 24 and 48 h thereafter. Concentrations of levobupivacaine were determined by liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry. Following single dose of levobupivacaine, all animals had measurable plasma concentrations 0.5 h after drug administration, with most peak concentrations observed at the 1-h time point. In all 12 animals, levobupivacaine was below the limit of quantification 48 h after drug administration. The mean maximum plasma concentration, area under the curve and half-life were determined to be 809.98 μg/l, 6552.46 μg/l h and 6.25 h, respectively. Plasma clearance, volume of distribution and weight-normalized volume of distribution were 4.41 l/h, 35.57 l and 1.23 l/kg, respectively. Peak plasma concentrations in our study were well below concentrations that were found to produce toxicity in pigs.