New and developing anesthesia drugs

ABSTRACT

Introduction: In recent years, new anesthetic drugs with potentially better pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties are under development with good progress. Some of the most promising drugs are reviewed in this article.

Areas covered: A literature review was performed using Ovid and Medline as the search engine. Articles published from January 2000 to December 2016 were included for review. Efforts have been made to eliminate duplicated studies.

Expert opinion: This is an up-to-date review on new and developing anesthesia drugs. It will give readers information on the pharmacology and clinical significance of these new drugs.

KEYWORDS:

• New anesthesia drug
• benzodiazepine
• neuromuscular blocking agent
• reversal agent
• opioid
• local anesthetic
• induction agent

Article Highlights

• New anesthetic drugs are being developed to meet the demand of the aging population and the need for surgery as out-patient procedures.

• Remimazolam is a new ultra-short-acting benzodiazepine developed for procedural sedation.

• Liposomal bupivacaine is a long-acting formulation of bupivacaine that can provide prolonged postsurgical analgesia with opioid-sparing effect.

• Sugammadex is a reversal agent for neuromuscular blockade by steroidal muscle relaxants without the associated autonomic disturbances caused by traditional anti-cholinesterases. Calabadion 2 is a reversal agent for of both steroidal and benzylisoquinolines neuromuscular blockade. CW002 is a non-depolarizing neuromuscular blocking agent that can be rapidly inactivated by plasma cysteine.

• Opioids with abuse-deterrent formulations have been developed to combat opioid abuse, misuse and overdose risk in chronic pain patients.

• Etomidate analog with minimal cardiovascular and adrenocortical suppression is a potentially ideal intravenous general anesthetic induction agent for critically ill patients.

This box summarizes key points contained in the article.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.