DEMON-Study

(DantrolenE MONitoring in anesthesia and intensive care)

Dear Colleagues,

Malignant hyperthermia (MH) remains one of the most severe complications in anesthesia and intensive care medicine, as it is almost uniformly fatal if not recognized and treated promptly and adequately. Clinical MH crises primarily affect children (Klingler et al., 2014). In accordance with the Helsinki Declaration on Patient Safety in Anesthesiology, the management of MH must strictly follow the recommendations of the professional societies. In addition to basic emergency measures, dantrolene is the only life-saving therapeutic agent available (Riazi et al., 2014).

To gain insight into anesthesiologists’ personal experiences with MH as well as the current stocking status of dantrolene, we kindly ask you to participate in this online survey, supported by the Working Group on Pediatric Anesthesia and the Working Group on Neuroanesthesia of the German Society of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine (DGAI). This questionnaire is also supported by additional international anesthesiology societies. The survey consists of a maximum of 27 questions and therefore takes no longer than 10 minutes.

We would like to expressly encourage not only senior anesthesiologists but also residents and board-certified specialists to participate. The authors assure you of complete anonymity; no data will be collected that could in any way allow conclusions to be drawn regarding the identity of participants or their institutions.

We sincerely thank you for taking the time to participate in this survey.

Lead Coordinators

Prof. Dr. Werner Klingler (Head, Malignant Hyperthermia Hotline Germany)
PD Dr. Sebastian Hafner (Chief of Anesthesia, Sana Clinic, Biberach District)

Additional Contributors:

Prof. Dr. Thomas Engelhard (Head of Pediatric Anesthesia, McGill University, Montreal, Canada)
Katharina Hapke (University of Ulm)

PD. Dr. Sebastian Heiderich (Consultant, Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Hannover Medical School)

Prof. Dr. Peter Kienbaum (Senior Consultant, Anesthesiology, University of Düsseldorf)
Prof. Dr. Ernst Pfenninger (Former Head of Disaster Management, University of Ulm)
PD Dr. Jörg Thomas (Senior Consultant, Pediatric Anesthesia, Children’s Hospital Zurich, Switzerland)

References:
Klingler W, Heiderich S, Girard T et al. Functional and genetic characterization of clinical malignant hyperthermia crisis: a multi-centre study. Orphanet J Rare Dis 2014; 9:8.
Riazi S, Larach M, Hu C et al. Malignant Hyperthermia in Canada: characteristics of index anesthesia in 129 malignant hyperthermia susceptible probands. Anesth Analg 2014; 118(2): 381–387.