Introduction:

Magnesium sulfate heptahydrate (MgSO4 7H2O) is a divalent cation, pharmacologically its mechanism has been as a reversible blocker of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) and therefore has been proposed in the use of anesthesiology.

Objective:

to describe its properties, its mechanism of action, the uses and the doses in anesthesiology.

Methodology:

A bibliographic review was carried out with keywords: anesthesia, magnesium sulfate, analgesia, muscle relaxation and organ protection in: PubMed, Science Direct, Embase and Cochrane Library. The articles considered most relevant and with the greatest evidence were selected.

Results:

A total of 244 articles were obtained, 210 were eliminated, a total of 34 articles remained. The bibliography reports the use of MgSO4 7H2O as an adjunct in sedation, analgesia, neuromuscular relaxation, motor relaxation in neuraxial anesthesia, prophylaxis for postoperative nausea and vomiting, as well as in pathologies that require its application prevenient to or during the anesthetic event (alterations in serum levels of Mg++, patients with treatment based on MgSO4 7H2O, bronchospasm, hypertensive uncontrolled, excessive bleeding and cardiac arrhythmias).

Conclusions:

The use of MgSO4 7H2O has shown useful pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic qualities in the management of the surgical patient patient such as analgesia, sedation, hemodynamic stability, decrease in PONV and decrease in the consumption of opioids and hypnotics, and it can also be applied as treatment of the patient's own pathologies.