Anesthesiology
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Intraoperative awareness in patients undergoing general anesthesia is an infrequent but well-described adverse outcome. The reported incidence of this phenomenon is between 0.1% and 0.9%. ⋯ The incidence of intraoperative awareness in this large sample of patients from a regional medical center undergoing general anesthesia was 0.0068%, or 1 per 14,560 patients, substantially less than that reported in the recent literature.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Sevoflurane inhalation at sedative concentrations provides endothelial protection against ischemia-reperfusion injury in humans.
Endothelial cells can be protected against cytokine-induced toxicity by volatile anesthetics. The authors tested whether inhalation of sevoflurane at subanesthetic concentrations provides protection against postocclusive endothelial dysfunction induced by ischemia-reperfusion injury of the forearm in humans. ⋯ These data suggest that human endothelium, a key component of all vital organs, is receptive to protection by sevoflurane in vivo. Peri-ischemic administration of sevoflurane mimics a combination of pharmacologic preconditioning and postconditioning and protects at even low sedative concentrations (< 1 vol%). Inhibition of leukocyte adhesion is likely to be involved in the protection.
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The authors' objective was to identify the role of the Na+-Ca2+ exchanger (NCX) in mediating the contractile dysfunction observed in diabetic cardiomyocytes before and after exposure to propofol. ⋯ These data suggest that propofol enhances PRP via activation of reverse mode NCX, but attenuates Ca2+ removal from the cytosol via inhibition of forward mode NCX in diabetic cardiomyocytes. The actions of propofol are mediated via a protein kinase C-dependent pathway.