• V V Likhvantsev.
• Anesteziol Reanimatol. 2002 May 1(3):17-9.

AbstractRespiratory narcotic devices and monitoring devices have been rapidly improved since World War II; new effective and safe drugs and high-quality materials appeared. This resulted in a notable decrease of mortality caused by anesthesia: from 1 per 50 patients before the war to 1 per 200,000 patients during the last years of the twentieth century. Paradoxical as it is, anesthesia today is one of the most safe medical specializations. Then what, if not the problem of safety, makes anesthesiologists improve the methods of intraoperative protection? It will be only just to admit that the main trend in development of anesthesiology today is not improvement of its safety, but the desire to make the postoperative period as comfortable as possible for the patient and to facilitate anesthesiologist's work. The choice of method of anesthesia less and less affects the quality of intraoperative protection. Modern methods of total and local anesthesia are so universal, that can be used in patients of any age, physical status, in surgery of any duration and traumatization. One and the same method can meet the most strict requirements to outpatient and venture surgery. Hence, the initially rather long list of anesthesiological methods becomes shorter as it should meet modern requirements to the efficiency and safety of anesthesia and becomes quite short if we take into consideration patient's comfort and physician's convenience. The choice from 3-4 methods is completely determined by physician's habits or preferences or traditions of the hospital.

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