Storing Dantrolene Can Reduce Malignant Hyperthermia Fatalities, Study Finds

Keeping dantrolene stocked in ASCs could cost-effectively prevent more than 30 malignant hyperthermia deaths each year, according to an article in Anesthesiology.

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Malignant hyperthermia is the result of a gene-environment interaction between certain individuals and general anesthesia agents. It occurs nearly 50 times each year in U.S. ASCs. Dantrolene sodium is the only existing MH-specific treatment, according to a news release.

While the Malignant Hyperthermia Association of the United States recommends that every ASC stock dantrolene, the cost-effectiveness of this practice had been in question before the study published in Anesthesia, leading some ASCs to forgo having the drug on hand, despite the fact that MH may be fatal without it. According to researchers, the incremental cost-effectiveness of having dantrolene on hand is nearly $200,000.

Education and training for recognition and treatment of MH is one of the most commonly failed accreditation standards, according to the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care’s AENEID survey.

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