Nifedipine pretreatment for prevention of autonomic hyperreflexia during anesthesia-free extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy.

Nifedipine, a calcium channel blocker, has been used to treat autonomic hyperreflexia in quadriplegics undergoing invasive urological procedures. We present a case of autonomic hyperreflexia triggered by extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy in which nifedipine was used successfully to treat the hypertensive crisis on 1 occasion and subsequently it was used prophylactically to prevent the crisis in the same patient.