Pharmacokinetics and Metabolism: Infused sodium nitroprusside is rapidly distributed to a volume that is approximately coextensive with the extracellular space. The drug is cleared from this volume by intraerythrocytic reaction with hemoglobin (Hg b), and sodium nitroprusside's resulting circulatory half-life is about 2 minutes.

The products of the nitroprusside/hemoglobin reaction are cyanmethemoglobin (cyanmetHgb) and cyanide ion (CN¯). Safe use of sodium nitroprusside injection must be guided by knowledge of the further metabolism of these products.

As shown in the diagram below, the essential features of nitroprusside metabolism are

• one molecule of sodium nitroprusside is metabolized by combination with hemoglobin to produce one molecule of cyanmethemoglobin and four CN¯ ions;
• methemoglobin, obtained from hemoglobin, can sequester cyanide as cyanmethemoglobin;
• thiosulfate reacts with cyanide to produce thiocyanate;
• thiocyanate is eliminated in the urine;
• cyanide not otherwise removed binds to cytochromes; and
• cyanide is much more toxic than methemoglobin or thiocyanate.

Cyanide ion is normally found in serum; it is derived from dietary substrates and from tobacco smoke. Cyanide binds avidly (but reversibly) to ferric ion (Fe+++), most body stores of which are found in erythrocyte methemoglobin (metHgb) and in mitochondrial cytochromes. When CN¯ is infused or generated within the bloodstream, essentially all of it is bound to methemoglobin until intraerythrocytic methemoglobin has been saturated.

When the Fe+++ of cytochrome is bound to cyanide, the cytochromes are unable to participate in oxidative metabolism. In this situation cells may be able to provide for their energy needs by utilizing anaerobic pathways, but they thereby generate an increasing body burden of lactic acid. Other cells may be unable to utilize these alternative pathways, and they may die hypoxic deaths.

CN¯ levels in packed erythrocytes are typically less than 1 μmol/L (less than 25 mcg /L); levels are roughly doubled in heavy smokers.

At healthy steady state, most people have less than 1% of their hemoglobin in the form of methemoglobin. Nitroprusside metabolism can lead to methemoglobin formation (a) through dissociation of cyanmethemoglobin formed in the original reaction of sodium nitroprusside with Hgb and (b) by direct oxidation of Hgb by the released nitroso group. Relatively large quantities of sodium nitroprusside, however, are required to produce significant methemoglobinemia.

At physiologic methemoglobin levels, the CN¯ binding capacity of packed red cells is a little less than 200 μmol/L (5 mg /L). Cytochrome toxicity is seen at levels only slightly higher, and death has been reported at levels from 300 to 3000 μmol/L (8 – 80 mg /L). Put another way, a patient with a normal red-cell mass (35 mL/kg) and normal methemoglobin levels can buffer about 175 mcg /kg of CN¯, corresponding to a little less than 500 mcg /kg of infused sodium nitroprusside.

Some cyanide is eliminated from the body as expired hydrogen cyanide, but most is enzymatically converted to thiocyanate (SCN¯) by thiosulfate-cyanide sulfur transferase (rhodanase, EC 2.8.1.1), a mitochondrial enzyme. The enzyme is normally present in great excess, so the reaction is rate-limited by the availability of sulfur donors, especially thiosulfate, cystine, and cysteine.

Thiosulfate is a normal constituent of serum, produced from cysteine by way of β-mercaptopyruvate. Physiological levels of thiosulfate are typically about 0.1 mmol/L (11 mg /L), but they are approximately twice this level in pediatric and adult patients who are not eating . Infused thiosulfate is cleared from the body (primarily by the kidneys) with a half-life of about 20 minutes.

When thiosulfate is being supplied only by normal physiologic mechanisms, conversion of CN¯ to SCN¯ generally proceeds at about 1 mcg /kg /min. This rate of CN¯ clearance corresponds to steady-state processing of a sodium nitroprusside infusion of slightly more than 2 mcg/kg/min. CN¯ begins to accumulate when sodium nitroprusside infusions exceed this rate.

Thiocyanate (SCN¯) is also a normal physiological constituent of serum, with normal levels typically in the range of 50 - 250 μmol/L (3-15 mg/L). Clearance of SCN¯ is primarily renal, with a half-life of about 3 days. In renal failure, the half-life can be doubled or tripled.

Excessive Hypotension: Small transient excesses in the infusion rate of sodium nitroprusside can result in excessive hypotension, sometimes to levels so low as to compromise the perfusion of vital organs. These hemodynamic changes may lead to a variety of associated symptoms; see ADVERSE REACTIONS. Nitroprusside-induced hypotension will be self-limited within 1-10 minutes after discontinuation of the nitroprusside infusion; during these few minutes, it may be helpful to put the patient into a head-down (Trendelenburg) position to maximize venous return. If hypotension persists more than a few minutes after discontinuation of the infusion of sodium nitroprusside, sodium nitroprusside is not the cause, and the true cause must be sought.

Cyanide Toxicity: As described in CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY above, sodium nitroprusside infusions at rates above 2 mcg/kg/min generate cyanide ion (CN¯) faster than the body can normally dispose of it. (When sodium thiosulfate is given, as described under DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION, the body's capacity for CN¯ elimination is greatly increased.) Methemoglobin normally present in the body can buffer a certain amount of CN¯, but the capacity of this system is exhausted by the CN¯ produced from about 500 mcg/kg of sodium nitroprusside. This amount of sodium nitroprusside is administered in less than an hour when the drug is administered at 10 mcg/kg/min (the maximum recommended rate). Thereafter, the toxic effects of CN¯ may be rapid, serious, and even lethal.

The true rates of clinically important cyanide toxicity cannot be assessed from spontaneous reports or published data. Most patients reported to have experienced such toxicity have received relatively prolonged infusions, and the only patients whose deaths have been unequivocally attributed to nitroprusside-induced cyanide toxicity have been patients who had received nitroprusside infusions at rates (30 - 120 mcg/kg/min) much greater than those now recommended. Elevated cyanide levels, metabolic acidosis, and marked clinical deterioration, however, have occasionally been reported in patients who received infusions at recommended rates for only a few hours and even, in one case, for only 35 minutes. In some of these cases, infusion of sodium thiosulfate caused dramatic clinical improvement, supporting the diagnosis of cyanide toxicity.

Cyanide toxicity may manifest itself as venous hyperoxemia with bright red venous blood, as cells become unable to extract the oxygen delivered to them; metabolic (lactic) acidosis; air hunger; coinfusion; and death. Cyanide toxicity due to causes other than nitroprusside has been associated with angina pectoris and myocardial infarction; ataxia, seizures, and stroke; and other diffuse ischemic damage.

Hypertensive patients, and patients concomitantly receiving other antihypertensive medications, may be more sensitive to the effects of sodium nitroprusside than normal subjects.

General: Like other vasodilators, sodium nitroprusside can cause increases in intracranial pressure. In patients whose intracranial pressure is already elevated, sodium nitroprusside should be used only with extreme caution.

Laboratory Tests: The cyanide-level assay is technically difficult, and cyanide levels in body fluids other than packed red blood cells are difficult to interpret. Cyanide toxicity will lead to lactic acidosis and venous hyperoxemia, but these findings may not be present until an hour or more after the cyanide capacity of the body's red-cell mass has been exhausted.

Drug Interactions: The hypotensive effect of sodium nitroprusside is augmented by that of most other hypotensive drugs, including ganglionic blocking agents, negative inotropic agents, and inhaled anesthetics.

Carcinogenesis, Mutagenesis, and Impairment of Fertility: Animal studies assessing sodium nitroprusside's carcinogenicity and mutagenicity have not been conducted. Similarly, sodium nitroprusside has not been tested for effects on fertility.

Pregnancy: Teratogenic effects: Pregnancy Category C.

There are no adequate, well-controlled studies of Sodium Nitroprusside in either laboratory animals or pregnant women. It is not known whether Sodium Nitroprusside can cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant woman or can affect reproductive capacity. Sodium Nitroprusside should be given to a pregnant woman only if clearly needed.

Nursing Mothers: It is not known whether sodium nitroprusside and its metabolites are excreted in human milk. Because many drugs are excreted in human milk and because of the potential for serious adverse reactions in nursing infants from sodium nitroprusside, a decision should be made whether to discontinue nursing or to discontinue the drug , taking into account the importance of the drug to the mother.

Pediatric Use: Efficacy in the pediatric population was established based on adult trials and supported by the dose-ranging trial (Study 1) and an open label trial of at least 12 hour infusion at a rate that achieved adequate MAP control (Study 2) with pediatric patients on sodium nitroprusside. No novel safety issues were seen in these studies in pediatric patients. See CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY and DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION.

Methemoglobinemia: As described in CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY above, sodium nitroprusside infusions can cause sequestration of hemoglobin as methemoglobin. The back-conversion process is normally rapid, and clinically significant methemoglobinemia (>10 %) is seen only rarely in patients receiving Sodium Nitroprusside Injection. Even patients congenitally incapable of back-converting methemoglobin should demonstrate 10% methemoglobinemia only after they have received about 10 mg/kg of sodium nitroprusside, and a patient receiving sodium nitroprusside at the maximum recommended rate (10 mcg/kg/min) would take over 16 hours to reach this total accumulated dose.

Methemoglobin levels can be measured by most clinical laboratories. The diagnosis should be suspected in patients who have received >10 mg/kg of sodium nitroprusside and who exhibit signs of impaired oxygen delivery despite adequate cardiac output and adequate arterial pO2. Classically, methemoglobinemic blood is described as chocolate brown, without color change on exposure to air.

When methemoglobinemia is diagnosed, the treatment of choice is 1-2 mg/kg of methylene blue, administered intravenously over several minutes. In patients likely to have substantial amounts of cyanide bound to methemoglobin as cyanmethemoglobin, treatment of methemoglobinemia with methylene blue must be undertaken with extreme caution.

Thiocyanate Toxicity: As described in CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY above, most of the cyanide produced during metabolism of sodium nitroprusside is eliminated in the form of thiocyanate. When cyanide elimination is accelerated by the co-infusion of thiosulfate, thiocyanate production is increased.

Thiocyanate is mildly neurotoxic (tinnitus, miosis, hyperreflexia) at serum levels of 1 mmol/L (60 mg/L). Thiocyanate toxicity is life-threatening when levels are 3 or 4 times higher (200 mg/L).

The steady-state thiocyanate level after prolonged infusions of sodium nitroprusside is increased with increased infusion rate, and the half-time of accumulation is 3-4 days. To keep the steady-state thiocyanate level below 1 mmol/L, a prolonged infusion of sodium nitroprusside should not be more rapid than 3 mcg/kg/min; in anuric patients, the corresponding limit is just 1 mcg/kg/min. When prolonged infusions are more rapid than these, thiocyanate levels should be measured daily.

Physiologic maneuvers (e.g., those that alter the pH of the urine) are not known to increase the elimination of thiocyanate. Thiocyanate clearance rates during dialysis, on the other hand, can approach the blood flow rate of the dialyzer.

Thiocyanate interferes with iodine uptake by the thyroid.

Abdominal pain, apprehension, diaphoresis, “dizziness,” headache, muscle twitching, nausea, palpitations, restlessness, retching, and retrosternal discomfort have been noted when the blood pressure was too rapidly reduced. These symptoms quickly disappeared when the infusion was slowed or discontinued, and they did not reappear with a continued (or resumed) slower infusion.

Other adverse reactions reported are:

Cardiovascular: Bradycardia, electrocardiographic changes, tachycardia.

Dermatologic: Rash.

Endocrine: Hypothyroidism.

Gastrointestinal: Ileus.

Hematologic: Decreased platelet aggregation.

Neurologic: Increased intracranial pressure.

Miscellaneous: Flushing, venous streaking, irritation at the infusion site.

Verification of the chemical integrity of the product: Sodium nitroprusside solution can be inactivated by reactions with trace contaminants. The products of these reactions are often blue, green, or red, much brighter than the faint brownish color of unreacted Sodium Nitroprusside Injection. Discolored solutions, or solutions in which particulate matter is visible, should not be used. If properly protected from light, the freshly diluted solution is stable for 24 hours.

No other drugs should be administered in the same solution with sodium nitroprusside.

Avoidance of excessive hypotension: While the average effective rate in adult and pediatric patients is about 3 mcg/kg/min, some patients will become dangerously hypotensive when they receive Sodium Nitroprusside at this rate. Infusion of sodium nitroprusside should therefore be started at a very low rate (0.3 mcg/kg/min), with upward titration every few minutes until the desired effect is achieved or the maximum recommended infusion rate (10 mcg/kg/min) has been reached.

Because sodium nitroprusside's hypotensive effect is very rapid in onset and in dissipation, small variations in infusion rate can lead to wide, undesirable variations in blood pressure. Since there is inherent variation in blood pressure measurement, confirm the drug effect at any infusion rate after an additional 5 minutes before titrating to a higher dose to achieve the desired blood pressure. Sodium nitroprusside should not be infused through ordinary I.V. apparatus, regulated only by gravity and mechanical clamps . Only an infusion pump, preferably a volumetric pump, should be used.

Because sodium nitroprusside can induce essentially unlimited blood-pressure reduction, the blood pressure of a patient receiving this drug must be continuously monitored, using either a continually reinflated sphygmomanometer or (preferably) an intra-arterial pressure sensor. Special caution should be used in elderly patients, since they may be more sensitive to the hypotensive effects of the drug.

When sodium nitroprusside is used in the treatment of acute congestive heart failure, titration of the infusion rate must be guided by the results of invasive hemodynamic monitoring with simultaneous monitoring of urine output. Sodium nitroprusside can be titrated by increasing the infusion rate until:

• measured cardiac output is no longer increasing ,
• systemic blood pressure cannot be further reduced without compromising the perfusion of vital organs, or
• the maximum recommended infusion rate has been reached, whichever comes earliest. Specific hemodynamic goals must be tailored to the clinical situation, but improvements in cardiac output and left ventricular filling pressure must not be purchased at the price of undue hypotension and consequent hypoperfusion.

Table 2 below shows the infusion rates corresponding to the recommended initial and maximal doses (0.3 mcg/kg/min and 10 mcg/kg/min, respectively) for both adult and pediatric patients of various weights. This infusion rate may be lower than indicated in the table for patients less than 10 kg . Note that when the concentration used in a given patient is changed, the tubing is still filled with a solution at the previous concentration.

Avoidance of cyanide toxicity: As described in CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY above, when more than 500 mcg/kg of sodium nitroprusside is administered faster than 2 mcg/kg/min, cyanide is generated faster than the unaided patient can eliminate it. Administration of sodium thiosulfate has been shown to increase the rate of cyanide processing, reducing the hazard of cyanide toxicity. Although toxic reactions to sodium thiosulfate have not been reported, the co-infusion regimen has not been extensively studied, and it cannot be recommended without reservation. In one study, sodium thiosulfate appeared to potentiate the hypotensive effects of sodium nitroprusside.

Co-infusions of sodium thiosulfate have been administered at rates of 5-10 times that of sodium nitroprusside. Care must be taken to avoid the indiscriminate use of prolonged or high doses of sodium nitroprusside with sodium thiosulfate as this may result in thiocyanate toxicity and hypovolemia. In cautious administration of sodium nitroprusside must still be avoided, and all of the precautions concerning sodium nitroprusside administration must still be observed.

Consideration of methemoglobinemia and thiocyanate toxicity: Rare patients receiving more than 10 mg/kg of sodium nitroprusside will develop methemoglobinemia; other patients, especially those with impaired renal function, will predictably develop thiocyanate toxicity after prolonged, rapid infusions. In accordance with the descriptions in ADVERSE REACTIONS above, patients with suggestive findings should be tested for these toxicities.

WARNING: Do not use flexible container in series connections.