Conditions: Gastrointestinal Cancer
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 128
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
The depth of neuromuscular blockade (NMB) during surgery may cause a clinical dilemma between optimal surgical conditions and the risk of postoperative residual blockade.

The aim of the study is to investigate if intense NMB improves surgical conditions during operation in patients scheduled for elective open upper abdominal surgery.

Detailed description:

Arms:
arm 1: Rocuronium 0.6 mg/kg followed by bolus rocuronium according to standard treatment decided by the attending anesthetist combined with saline infusion (placebo). arm 2: Rocuronium 0.6 mg/kg followed by rocuronium infusion with target level post tetanic count (PTC) of 0-1 combined with bolus saline (placebo) mimicking standard treatment.

Interventions: intervention 1: Group STANDARD: Rocuronium 0.6 mg/kg followed by bolus rocuronium according to standard treatment combined with saline infusion (placebo). intervention 2: Group DEEP: Rocuronium 0.6 mg/kg followed by rocuronium infusion with target level PTC 0-1 combined with bolus saline (placebo) mimicking standard treatment.
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: None intervention 2: None

Protocol document: