UMEM Educational Pearls

Category: Toxicology

Title: Intralipid

Keywords: lipid emulsion,intralipid,verapamil (PubMed Search)

Posted: 6/30/2011 by Fermin Barrueto, MD
Click here to contact Fermin Barrueto, MD

The mounting evidence on the use of 20% lipid emulsion or intrlipid has been growing for  any patient that is hemodynamically unstable due to a drug exposure. There is now a recent case report of a verapamil overdose patient that received intralipid and did well. They were able to measure verapamil levels before and after administration. They were able to remove the lipid from the serum to appropriately measure the level and found effective removal. This adds to the theory of the "lipid sink" where the lipid actually is binding/surrounding a lipophilic molecule effectively removing it from interaction.

References

 

Clin Toxicol (Phila). 2011 Apr;49(4):340-4. doi: 10.3109/15563650.2011.572556.

Serum verapamil concentrations before and after Intralipid® therapy during treatment of an overdose.