Local Anaesthetic Toxicity

Dr John Picard,
Consultant Anaesthetist,
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

Biography
John Picard was born in Charing Cross Hospital - and now works there, daily satisfying his passions for regional and neuroanaesthesia.  Much of his university education was at Oxford - and has proved utterly irrelevant.  He has dabbled in economics, mathematics and control of malaria, but is now a jobbing anaesthetist.  He is absolutely not a toxicologist. 

Abstract
John's lecture will cover the incidence of local anaesthetic intoxication, its presentation, its mechanism, current treatment recommendations, the mechanism of lipid's beneficial effect and possible future developments.

References
This is a fast moving field. So a well maintained website is a good place to start. Try www.lipidrescue.org.  There are also several recent summaries of the state of the art:

Lipid emulsion to treat drug overdose: past, present and future.
Picard J, Harrop-Griffiths W.  Anaesthesia. 2009 Feb;64(2):119-21.

Bupivacaine-induced cardiac arrest: fat is good-is epinephrine really bad
Harvey M, Cave G.  Anesthesiology. 2009 Sep;111(3):467-9. 

Intravenous Lipid Emulsion as Antidote 

Beyond Local Anesthetic Toxicity: A Systematic Review
Harvey M, Cave G.  Academic Emergency Medicine 2009;16:815–824