Pentetrazol is a medicinal agent that exerts a stimulant effect on the patient’s circulation. Pentetrazol is a bicyclic derivative of tetrazole. The key effect of the drug pentetrazol is that it stimulates the areas in the brain responsible for breathing as well as the activity of the heart. If people receive the drug in high doses, the individuals usually experience convulsions. For this reason, pentetrazol found application in shock therapy in earlier times.
What is pentetrazol?
Basically, pentetrazol belongs to the medical group of drugs called convulsants. The drug is also known as pentylenetetrazole, leptazole, and metrazole. The molar mass of the substance is approximately 138. At room temperature, pentetrazol is in a solid state of aggregation. The substance pentetrazol is characterized by a pungent odor and a bitter taste. Pentetrazol usually appears in the form of crystals. The melting temperature of the substance ranges between 57 and 60 degrees Celsius. In addition, pentetrazol dissolves relatively well in water as well as in numerous other organic solutions. The active ingredient pentetrazole exhibits comparatively high stability and is relatively resistant to attack by other chemical substances. Basically, pentetrazole is formed by a special chemical reaction in which cyclohexanone and nitric acid react with each other. The chemist Karl-Friedrich Schmidt discovered the substance, which was subsequently used by numerous other researchers and doctors in the medical field. One of the effects of pentetrazol is that it triggers convulsions in patients. This is why physicians use the drug in shock therapy, for example. Today, pentetrazol is no longer available on the pharmaceutical market in many countries. The reason for this is primarily serious complications and side effects that have led to death in some people. In 1982, the Food and Drug Administration in the United States banned the use of pentetrazol in humans.
Pharmacologic effects on the body and organs
Pentetrazol is one of those convulsants that act particularly on the brain stem. In addition, pentetrazol is considered an analeptic and stimulates the brain centers that control circulation and respiration. In doing so, the drug primarily activates certain neurons and is capable of triggering epilepsy-like seizures. These convulsions can only be differentiated from real epilepsy by electroencephalogram examinations. In earlier times, the drug pentetrazol was used, for example, as an antidote in cases of poisoning or overdose with certain sleeping pills, the so-called barbiturates. However, pentetrazol sometimes causes serious complications, sometimes fatal. For example, some individuals experience convulsions and associated hypoxia after taking pentetrazol, sometimes resulting in death.
Medical use and use for treatment and prevention.
The medical agent pentetrazol is used both as an analeptic and as a brainstem convulsant. In particular, pentetrazol stimulates the neurons of specific areas of the brain. Since pentetrazol acts primarily on those areas that control breathing and circulation, the effects of the drug also unfold on the heart. Sometimes pentetrazol causes seizures that are difficult to distinguish from classic epilepsy. However, this is an adverse effect of the drug. In the past, pentetrazol was mainly used as an antidote for poisoning with barbiturates. In addition, pentetrazol was considered a popular circulatory stimulant. In addition, physicians used pentetrazol in shock therapy, taking advantage of its spasm-inducing effect. However, due to the complications and side effects of pentetrazol, the active ingredient is no longer available in many countries today. Today, pentetrazol is mainly used in animal experiments. Researchers use pentetrazol in these experiments, for example, to induce convulsions.
Risks and side effects
Taking the active ingredient pentetrazol leads to significant side effects and complications in some patients, which is why it has now lost approval as a medicine in many countries.On the one hand, in some cases pentetrazol causes general complaints of the digestive tract, for example nausea and vomiting. On the other hand, pentetrazol sometimes triggers epilepsy-like convulsions. The risk of convulsions increases with the dosage. In some people, these convulsions result in hypoxia, which is fatal in numerous cases. For this reason in particular, pentetrazol is hardly used as a drug in human medicine today. Hypoxia is always a life-threatening condition in which the organism or certain areas of the body are no longer adequately supplied with oxygen. Patients are panic-stricken and suffer from tachycardia and cyanosis. In the absence of therapy, individuals lose consciousness, fall into a coma or suffer circulatory arrest. In addition, before taking pentetrazol, certain interactions with other medical substances must be considered. For example, if patients take pentetrazol at the same time as the drug haloperidol, the risk of seizures increases. If concomitant administration of both drugs is necessary, individuals should be closely monitored by a physician in all cases.
