Anesthesiology
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Little is known about differences in costs to provide anesthesia care for different surgical subspecialties and which factors influence the subspecialty-specific costs. ⋯ Different anesthesia subspecialties show significant and financially important differences regarding their specific costs. Personnel costs and total costs are highest for subspecialties with the shortest cases. Other analyzed cost drivers had little effect on subspecialty-specific costs. In the light of these cost differences, a detailed cost analysis seems necessary before the profitability of an anesthesia subspecialty can be assessed.
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The concentration of peroxynitrite in the brain increases after central nervous system injuries. The authors hypothesized that propofol, because of its particular chemical structure, mitigates the effects of peroxynitrite-mediated oxidative stress and apoptosis by the induction of heme oxygenase (HO)-1 in primary cultured astroglial cells. ⋯ The antioxidant properties of propofol can be partially attributed to its scavenging effect on peroxynitrite as well as to its ability to increase HO-1 expression at higher concentrations, a property that might be relevant to neuroprotection during anesthesia.