Agents causing anaphylactic shocks during anaesthesia. Third French multicentric survey (1992-1994)

Since 1989, the epidemiological survey of anaphylactoid reactions occurring during anaesthesia is obtained in France with repeated inquiries by the Perioperative Anaphylactic Reactions Study Group. The members of this group collect during the study period the cases of patients having suffered from an anaphylactoid reaction and tested in their allergo-anaesthetic outpatient clinic, their characteristics (age, gender), the results of the allergological tests (mechanism, agents responsible for the reactions). The two previous surveys published in the Annales francaises d'anesthesie et de reanimation in 1990 and 1993 included 1,240 and 1,585 patients respectively. The current survey concerned 1,750 patients tested in 27 diagnostic centres, from January 1992 to June 1994. The reactions occurred at all ages, predominantly between 10 and 50 years, the sex-ratio (F/M) was 2.4. Allergological tests carried out to diagnose an immune mechanism for the shock were cutaneous tests in ail centres (prick-tests in 21 centres, intradermal tests in 27 centres) using the same dilutions for the tested agents and the same threshold for positivity. Specific IgE antibodies against muscle relaxants, thiopentone and propofol, were measured by radio immunoassays in 20 centres. The leucocyte histamine release test was used in 10 centres. The immune origin of the shock - IgE dependent anaphylaxis - was diagnosed in 1,000 patients (57.8%) and due to 1,030 agents: muscle relaxants (59.2%), latex (19%), hypnotics (5.9%) benzodiazepines (2.1%), opioids (3.5%), plasma substitutes (5.0%), antibiotics (3.1%) and other drugs given during anaesthesia such as aprotinine and protamine (2.2%). Suxamethonium was responsible for 39.3% of muscle relaxant anaphylaxis, vecuronium for 36%, atracurium for 14.5%, pancuronium for 4.8%, gallamine for 3.1% and alcuronium for 2.3%. The latter has been withdrawn from the French market in 1993. These differences in the incidence of reactions are correlated with the clinical use of muscle relaxants in France for vecuronium and atracurium, however not for suxamethonium, responsible for 39% of the reactions but representing only 5% of the muscle relaxants sold in France. The comparison with the two previous surveys confirms that the mechanism of more than half of the anaphylactoid reactions occurring during anaesthesia is of immune origin, due to specific IgE antibodies. it is therefore essential to systematically carry out an allergologic assessment several weeks after the reaction, in order to discard for the subsequent anaestheticts the agent (s) responsible for anaphylaxis. If the muscle relaxants remain the first drugs involved in shock occurring at induction, there is a significant increase in latex shock, as demonstrated by the three epidemiological surveys (0.5%, 12.5 and now 19%). The incidence of other anaesthetic agents, antibiotics and plasma substitutes remains unchanged.