You
came late for the case and the surgeon is strutting up and down the corridors
like an expectant father. Rushing into OT, you grab the Nimbex and draw it into
the syringe ready to shoot it into the patient whom the nurses are pushing into
OT just then.
As you are about to inject the Nimbex, something makes you take a second look
at the ampoule of Nimbex. Horror, shock, disbelieve! It's not Nimbex but
Tracrium instead. You mutter under your breath that the OT Technicians shouldn't
have left the ampoule of Tracrium in the box of Nimbex but deep down, you know
that the person to blame if something untoward had happened to the patient was
you, yourself and nobody else.
Taking
a close look at the two ampoules of Tracrium and Nimbex, the cause was obvious,
the two ampoules coming from the same company were manufactured with exactly the
same size and shape and had a similar pattern of stripes on its sides. Only a
good look at the front of the labels will reveal their real identities.Thankfully, the two drugs are very similar in many respects and even their
doses when expressed as volume/unit mass body weight are similar.
| Tracrium | Nimbex | |
| Dose in mg/kg | ||
| Concentration in mg/ml | ||
| Dose in ml/kg |
So the chance of a major disaster is less except for those who are
susceptible to the effects of histamine release which may occur with Tracrium
but not with Nimbex. Nimbex is also more cardiovascularly stable than Tracrium