Adverse effects of intravenous acetazolamide administration for evaluation of cerebrovascular reactivity using brain perfusion single-photon emission computed tomography in patients with major cerebral artery steno-occlusive diseases

Adverse effects of intravenous acetazolamide administration for evaluation of cerebrovascular reactivity using brain perfusion single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) were prospectively investigated in 100 patients with major cerebral artery, atherosclerotic, and steno-occlusive diseases. All patients underwent two SPECT studies (with and without acetazolamide challenge) at an interval of 2 or 3 days, received a questionnaire immediately after each SPECT study, and returned the answered questionnaire within 7 days after the study. None of the 100 patients studied experienced any symptoms during the SPECT study without acetazolamide challenge. Sixty-three patients (63%) developed symptoms during the SPECT study with acetazolamide challenge, such as headache, nausea, dizziness, tinnitus, numbness of the extremities, motor weakness of the extremities, and general malaise 1-3 hours (mean 1.6 hours) after administration of acetazolamide, and these symptoms lasted for 0.5-72 hours (mean 7.9 hours). Multivariate statistical analysis revealed that younger age (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.896-0.980, p=0.0047) and female sex (95% CI 1.178-16.129, p=0.0274) were significantly associated with development of symptoms with acetazolamide challenge. The incidences of the development of symptoms with acetazolamide challenge were 91% (21/23) and 41% (12/29) in subgroups of women <70 years and men ≥70 years, respectively. Patients should be informed of such adverse effects of intravenous acetazolamide administration prior to the acetazolamide challenge test for evaluation of cerebrovascular reactivity. (author)