Correlation of Bacterial Hyperthermic Survival with Anaesthetic Potency

Summary

We have evaluated several local anaesthetics and hypnotics for their relative ability to influence hyperthermic cell killing. Bacterial cell survival following exposure to heat and anaesthetic was used as the assay system.

The E. coli bacterium used was the unsaturated fatty acid auxotroph, K1060. It was grown at 37°C in medium supplemented with oleic acid and then exposed to 47°C hyperthermia in the presence of an anaesthetic. The local anaesthetics tested were procaine, lidocaine, tetracaine, and benzocaine, and the general anaesthetics were barbital and pentobarbital. The dose response for each anaesthetic was determined over a five-hour heating period.

The anaesthetic concentration required during heating to halve the time for cell killing found with heat alone is 5·9 mM for procaine, 0·8 mM for lidocaine, 0·12 mM for tetracaine, 2·0 mM for benzocaine, 6·7 mM for barbital and 1·2 mM for pentobarbital. There is a direct correlation between equivalent effect doses of the local anaesthetics and published data for the relative potency of the same anaesthetics as determined by respiratory arrest in mice and by myocardial contractile force in dogs.

The assay we have described would be a convenient and easy test for the interaction of these drugs with hyperthermia. The use of this interaction with hyperthermia as an adjuvant in combined radiation-hyperthermia therapy should be tested.