Treating the pain of ambulatory surgical patients can be problematic. Concerns over the safety of analgesics often lead physicians to use small doses of these drugs with consequent sacrifices in efficacy. In particular, the respiratory depression, together with the prevalent nausea and vomiting, caused by opioids severely limit their value in this setting. However, other groups of analgesics are limited in terms of strength and duration of effect. One established approach to circumventing these problems is to use combinations of analgesics in single formulations. However, until recently, such combination formulations of analgesics have generally proved to be disappointing in practice, especially in treating moderate-to-severe pain.

Summary

In adults, a number of measures to reduce perioperative blood loss have been established. These techniques serve to reduce patients' exposure to homologous blood. Most adults are concerned with this issue especially since many patients became infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) during the 1980s through exposure to blood components. While blood-saving strategies are widely used in adults, they are mostly neglected in infants. However, it is these young patients with their whole life in front of them who, it could be argued, would benefit especially from any potentially avoidable infection (HIV, hepatitis, etc.) or immunological complications. In infants and small children, these blood-sparing techniques may not be as effective as in adults and technical limitations may prevent their application. However, some of these measures can be used and may serve to prevent or reduce exposure to homologous blood. In the following review, blood-saving techniques established in adults are described and their applicability for paediatric patients discussed.

Summary

Ion channels regulate a diversity of physiological functions such as neuronal signalling, cardiac excitability and immune cell response. All of these systems may be affected during the conduct of general as well as local anaesthesia. Thus, the investigation of anaesthetic action on ion channels has become the focus of an increasing number of laboratory studies. Consequently, the concepts of ion channel physiology are becoming important for understanding the scientific and pharmacological basis of clinical anaesthesia. This brief guide is intended to help in understanding the increasing number of studies concerned with the effects of anaesthetic agents on ionic currents. The generation of ionic currents requires a complex molecular interplay of ions, ion channel proteins and lipid membranes. Anaesthetic agents frequently exhibit more than a single effect on ion channel function. Their effects can be described by quantifying the pharmacological alteration of ion channel activation, conductance and inactivation. Many physiological functions are directly influenced by ion channels. Pharmacological action on ion channels is thus fundamental to effects as well as side-effects of anaesthetic agents. The alteration of ion channel function by anaesthetic agents consequently determines their clinical effects.

Summary

This study reports a review of all comparative published studies of adult day case anaesthesia in the English language up to December 2000. Ten databases were searched using appropriate keywords and data were extracted in a standardized fashion. One hundred-and-one published studies were examined. Recovery measurements were grouped as early, intermediate, late, psychomotor and adverse effects. With respect to induction of anaesthesia, propofol was superior to methohexital, etomidate and thiopental, but equal to sevoflurane and desflurane. Desflurane and sevoflurane were both superior to thiopental. There was no detectable difference between sevoflurane and isoflurane. With respect to the maintenance of anaesthesia, isoflurane and halothane were the worst. There were no significant differences between propofol, desflurane, sevoflurane and enflurane. Propofol is the induction agent of choice in day case patients. The use of a propofol infusion and avoidance of nitrous oxide may help to reduce postoperative nausea and vomiting.

Summary

The aim of this Review is to introduce anaesthesiologists to the basic physical principles that are important for their work. A better understanding of the underlying processes during anaesthesia is required for greater safety and efficiency. Relevant physical quantities are presented along with the area of anaesthesiology where they are used. This approach provides better targeting to the needs of practising anaesthesiologists. This text has been a part of a specialist course in anaesthesiology at the University of Ljubljana for some years. Current results show that both the students and the specialist anaesthesiologists now show a better understanding of the underlying physical principles required for their work and are more successful in fulfilling the needs of their practical work.

Summary

Background and objective: The aim was to train artificial neural nets to predict the recovery of a neuromuscular block during general anaesthesia. It was assumed that the initial/early neuromuscular recovery data with the simultaneously measured physical variables as inputs into a well-trained back-propagation neural net would enable the net to predict a rough estimate of the remaining recovery time.

Methods: Spontaneous recovery from neuromuscular block (electrically evoked electromyographic train-of-four responses) were recorded with the following variables known to affect the block: multiple minimum alveolar concentration, end-tidal CO2 concentration, and peripheral and central temperature.

Results: The mean prediction errors, mean absolute prediction errors, root-mean-squared prediction errors and correlation coefficients of all the nets were significantly better than those of average-based predictions used in the study. The root-mean-squared prediction error of the net – employing minimum alveolar concentrations from the whole recovery period (the recovery time from E2/E1 = 0.30 to E4/E1 = 0.75; E1 = first response of train-of-four, E2 = second response of train-of-four, etc.) – were significantly smaller than those of other nets, or the same net employing minimum alveolar concentrations only from the initial recovery period (from E2/E1 = 0.30 to E4/E1 = 0.25).

Conclusions: Neural nets could predict individual recovery times from the neuromuscular block significantly better than the average-based method used here, which was supposed to be more accurate than guesses by any clinician. The minimum alveolar concentration was the only monitored variable that influenced the recovery rate, but it did not aid neural net prediction.

Summary

Background and objective: We ascertained whether dreams during short general anaesthesia influence subsequent patient satisfaction and anxiety.

Methods: Fifty female patients were randomized into two groups to test for a difference between intravenous and inhalational anaesthesias. In Group Propo, anaesthesia was induced and maintained with propofol; in Group Metho–Iso, anaesthesia was induced with methohexital and maintained with isoflurane. Satisfaction and anxiety with anaesthesia were evaluated using a visual analogue scale from 0 to 100. Dream incidence rate, satisfaction and anxiety were assessed from immediately after waking until 3 months later.

Results: Seventeen patients (34%) dreamed during anaesthesia. There were no significant differences in satisfaction or anxiety after anaesthesia between the dreaming and non-dreaming patients (satisfaction, 92.3 ± 21.6 versus 92.1 ± 21.6; anxiety, 21.1 ± 21.1 versus 30.3± 32.1), or between Group Propo and Group Metho–Iso (satisfaction, 94.4 ± 19.3 versus 90.0 ± 23.4; anxiety, 26.0 ± 27.6 versus 28.4 ± 30.7). There was no significant difference in the incidence rate of dreaming with the type of anaesthesia used (Group Propo, 11 patients; Group Metho–Iso, 6 patients).

Conclusions: Dreaming during general anaesthesia is common but does not influence satisfaction or anxiety after anaesthesia.

Summary

Risk-adjusted outcome prediction is mainly important in two separate fields. The first is quality monitoring: measuring actual versus predicted mortality in an institution allows assessment of the clinical surgical and anaesthesia performance while adjusting for the risk profile of the patients. Without risk stratification, surgeons and hospitals treating high-risk patients will appear to have worse results than others. This may prejudice referral patterns, affect the allocation of resources and even discourage the treatment of high-risk patients. The second field is that of informed consent and clinical decision-making. Risk-adjusted predicted mortality should form an important part of patient and surgeon decisions on whether or not to proceed with surgery. Clearly, no ‘perfect’ model can be produced as some aspects of mortality will always be related to risk factors not included in the model (e.g. the quality of the distal coronary artery vessels in coronary artery surgery) or due to chance happenings not related to preoperative patient characteristics (such as surgical error). An individual patient will either survive or die after cardiac surgery. Clearly, no scoring system will predict the specific outcome for every patient. However, risk stratification will inform patients and clinicians of the likely risk of death for a group of patients with a similar risk profile undergoing the proposed operation. This information is useful and should form part of the basis on which the patient and surgeon decide whether to proceed.

Summary

Background and objective: The amide-linked local anaesthetics, bupivacaine and ropivacaine, can cause depression of cardiac contractility and dysrhythmias. In a previous study, we observed decreased contractility and ST segment depression following ropivacaine administration in anaesthetized dogs. The efficacy of intravenous (i.v.) and intracoronary nicorandil (30 and 100 μg kg−1), i.v. nitroglycerin (glyceryl trinitrate) (5 μg kg−1) and calcium chloride (1, 2 and 4 mmol) in reversing the cardiotoxic effects of intracoronary ropivacaine were studied following the administration of intracoronary ropivacaine.

Methods: Six dogs were studied. The dogs were anaesthetized with i.v. pentobarbital (30 mg kg−1). A left-sided thoracotomy was performed and the left circumflex coronary was cannulated. For each dog, the dose of ropivacaine was identified, which produced measurable cardiotoxicity. In each case, ropivacaine was followed by one of the three resuscitation drugs. The effects of each resuscitation drug on ST segments and left ventricular contractility (dP/dt) produced by ropivacaine alone were compared with those produced by ropivacaine followed by each of the three resuscitation drugs using Fisher's exact test.

Results: The doses of ropivacaine required to produce depression of left ventricular dP/dt and ST segments ranged from 1 to 8 mg. Ropivacaine-induced depression of left ventricular contractility (dP/dt) was more rapidly and completely reversed by calcium chloride than by either nitroglycerin or nicorandil (P = 0.008).

Conclusions: Calcium chloride may be effective in the treatment of inadvertent intravascular administration of amide local anaesthetic agents.

Summary

Background and objective: We studied the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of GPI 15715 (Aquavan® injection), a new water-soluble prodrug metabolized to propofol by hydrolysis.

Methods: Nine adult male Sprague–Dawley rats (398 ± 31 g) received a bolus dose of 40 mg GPI 15715. The plasma concentrations of GPI 15715 and propofol were determined from arterial blood samples, and the pharmacokinetics of both compounds were investigated using compartment models whereby the elimination from the central compartment of GPI 15715 was used as drug input for the central compartment of propofol. Pharmacodynamics were assessed using the median frequency of the EEG power spectrum.

Results: A maximum propofol concentration of 7.1 ± 1.7 μg mL−1 was reached 3.7 ± 0.2 min after bolus administration. Pharmacokinetics were best described by two-compartment models. GPI 15715 showed a short half-life (2.9 ± 0.2 and 23.9 ± 9.9 min), an elimination rate constant of 0.18 ± 0.01 min−1 and a central volume of distribution of 0.25 ± 0.02 L kg−1. For propofol, the half-life was 1.9 ± 0.1 and 45 ± 7 min, the elimination rate constant was 0.15 ± 0.02 min−1 and the central volume of distribution was 2.3 ± 0.6 L kg−1. The maximum effect on the electroencephalogram (EEG) – EEG suppression for >4 s – occurred 6.5 ± 1.2 min after bolus administration and baseline values of the EEG median frequency were regained 30 min later. The EEG effect could be described by a sigmoid Emax model including an effect compartment (E0 = 16.9 ± 7.9 Hz, EC50 = 2.6 ± 0.8 μg mL−1, ke0 = 0.35 ± 0.04 min−1).

Conclusions: Compared with known propofol formulations, propofol from GPI 15715 showed a longer half-life, an increased volume of distribution, a delayed onset, a sustained duration of action and a greater potency with respect to concentration.

Summary

The history of intrathecal and epidural anaesthesia is in parallel with the development of general anaesthesia. As ether anaesthesia (1846) is considered the first modern anaesthetic since its use by Morton 157 yr ago, so Bier made history by using cocaine for intrathecal anaesthesia in 1898. The first published report on opioids for intrathecal anaesthesia belongs to a Romanian surgeon, Racoviceanu-Pitesti, who presented his experience at Paris in 1901. It was almost a century before the opioids were used for epidural analgesia. Behar and his colleagues published the first report on the epidural use of morphine for the treatment of pain in The Lancet in 1979. Epidural and intrathecal opioids are today part of a routine regimen for intra- and postoperative analgesia. Over the last 30 yr, the use of epidural opioids has became a standard for analgesia in labour and delivery, and for the management of chronic pain. Finally, epidural opioids have been shown to have a pre-emptive effect, when used before major surgery. We present the evolution of neuraxial anaesthesia and the history of intrathecal and epidural administration of opioids.