Anesthesiology
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In some cases of severe preeclampsia/eclampsia, brain imaging displays signs compatible with raised intracranial pressure. We aimed to estimate the incidence of raised intracranial pressure in preeclampsia using ocular ultrasonography. ⋯ In about 20% of preeclamptic patients, ONSD reaches values compatible with intracranial pressure above 20 mmHg. Further work is needed to confirm this incidence and to better understand the diagnostic and therapeutic usefulness of this easy-to-do monitoring technique.
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Intestinal ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury is a devastating complication in the perioperative period. Dexmedetomidine is commonly applied in the perioperative period. The authors aimed to determine the effects of different doses of dexmedetomidine (given before or after intestinal ischemia) on intestinal I/R injury and to explore the underlying mechanisms. ⋯ Dexmedetomidine administration before, but not after, ischemia dose-dependently protects against I/R-induced intestinal injury, partly by inhibiting inflammatory response and intestinal mucosal epithelial apoptosis via α2 adrenoreceptor activation.
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Methoxycarbonyl etomidate is an ultrarapidly metabolized etomidate analog. It is metabolized to methoxycarbonyl etomidate carboxylic acid (MOC-ECA), which has a hypnotic potency that is 350-fold less than that of methoxycarbonyl etomidate. The authors explored the relationships between methoxycarbonyl etomidate infusion duration, recovery time, metabolite concentrations in blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and methoxycarbonyl etomidate metabolism in brain tissue and CSF to test the hypothesis that rapid metabolism of methoxycarbonyl etomidate may lead to sufficient accumulation of MOC-ECA in the brain to produce a pharmacologic effect. ⋯ In rats, methoxycarbonyl etomidate metabolism is sufficiently fast to produce pharmacologically active MOC-ECA concentrations in the brain with prolonged methoxycarbonyl etomidate infusion.