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Sodium thiopental
Sodium thiopental.svg
Sodium-thiopental-3D-vdW-2.png
Clinical data
AHFS/Drugs.com Monograph
Pregnancy
category
  • AU: D
Routes of
administration
Intravenous (most common), oral or rectal
ATC code
Legal status
Legal status
Pharmacokinetic data
Elimination half-life 5.5[1]-26 hours[2]
Identifiers
CAS Number
  • 71-73-8 Yes (sodium salt)
    76-75-5 (free acid)
PubChem CID
DrugBank
ChemSpider
UNII
KEGG
ChEBI
ChEMBL
Chemical and physical data
Formula C11H17N2NaO2S
Molar mass 264.32 g/mol
3D model (JSmol)
Chirality Racemic mixture

Sodium thiopental, also known as Sodium Pentothal (a trademark of Abbott Laboratories, not to be confused with pentobarbital), thiopental, thiopentone, or Trapanal (also a trademark), is a rapid-onset short-acting barbiturate general anesthetic that is an analogue of thiobarbital. Sodium thiopental was a core medicine in the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, which is a list of minimum medical needs for a basic healthcare system, but was supplanted by propofol. Despite this thiopental is still listed as an acceptable alternative to propofol, depending on local availability and cost of these agents. It was previously the first of three drugs administered during most lethal injections in the United States, but the U.S. manufacturer Hospira stopped manufacturing the drug and the EU banned the export of the drug for this purpose. Although thiopental abuse carries a dependency risk, its recreational use is rare.