Der Anaesthesist
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Echocardiography is a noninvasive method for cardiac evaluation. A review of the current literature shows that the routine use of echocardiography for assessing perioperative cardiac risk in patients undergoing noncardiac surgery can not be supported. ⋯ However, because of the high financial and personal implications it should be reserved to those patients who are not able to perform a normal stress test. Besides in patients in whom transthoracic echocardiography doesn't offer sufficient information or is not possible transesophageal echocardiography plays only a minor role in preoperative cardiac evaluation.
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Sevoflurane is characterized by a low blood/gas partition coefficient of 0.69, only desflurane and nitrous oxide have lower blood/gas solubilities. Alveolar equilibration is fast, a feature useful for rapid induction of anesthesia. Because of its pleasant smell, mask induction is feasible and routinely used in clinical settings. ⋯ Pulmonal elimination of sevoflurane is rapid because of its low blood solubility. Clinical results showed that rapidity of recovery from sevoflurane anesthesia is equal to that of desflurane anesthesia. Physicochemical properties of sevoflurane allow its application in conventional vaporizers.
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In obstetrics, general anaesthesia is increasingly being replaced by peridural anaesthesia. The cases where general anaesthesia is still used are those involving increased risk. It is therefore not surprising that, for example, maternal mortality in cases of caesarian section under general anaesthesia has not decreased. ⋯ In a comparison of sevoflurane and peridural anaesthesia, there was no difference in outcome for the child and the maternal results showed only the expected procedure-specific differences in circulatory parameters and early postoperative analgesia requirement. A second study involving continuous pEEG monitoring (SEF90) showed advantages of sevoflurane over isoflurane in the initial phase of surgery and in the recovery phase. However, the value of sevoflurane in obstetric anaesthesia will have to be confirmed in more extensive studies.
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The low blood/gas solubility, the rapid uptake and nonpungent odor permits mask induction with sevoflurane in adults. Depending on the induction techniques (tidal breathing, deep breaths or single-breath induction), the use of nitrous oxide and the concentration of inspired sevoflurane anesthesia can rapidly be induced within 41-178 s. Adverse effects like coughing, breath-holding or increased secretions occur with a low incidence of 2%-20%. ⋯ Although hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction is directly inhibited by volatile anesthetics in in vitro studies, this effect is usually of minor clinical consequence. The use of volatile anesthetics may be advocated because of their salutory effects on bronchomotor tone, high potency (allowing high inspired concentration of oxygen while avoiding awareness) and rapid adjustment of anesthetic depth. Sevoflurane possesses these attributes and may be useful for OLV.
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Sevoflurane is a viable alternative to propofol and desflurane for both induction and maintenance of general anaesthesia in the ambulatory setting. As a result of sevoflurane's lack of respiratory irritant properties, it provides for a smooth induction and prompt emergence from outpatient anaesthesia. In addition, the relatively low incidence of post-operative nausea and vomiting facilitates "fast-tracking" after ambulatory surgery. Although no single anaesthetic agent is ideal, when sevoflurane is combined with other adjunctive drugs it can produce excellent surgical conditions for a wide variety of ambulatory surgical and diagnostic procedures.