Acta anaesthesiologica Scandinavica
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Acta Anaesthesiol Scand · Aug 2012
Case ReportsUltrasound-guided block of the axillary nerve: a case series of potential clinical applications.
The specific blocking of the axillary nerve has never been investigated clinically. We present four cases illustrating potential applications of the axillary nerve block in the perioperative setting and discuss possible directions for future research in this area. The axillary nerve blocks were all performed using a newly developed in-plane ultrasound-guided technique. ⋯ The pain score after arthroscopic shoulder surgery in these two patients remained low until termination of the nerve block. In a fourth patient, severe post-operative pain after osteosynthesis of a displaced proximal humerus fracture was almost eliminated after performing an axillary nerve block. These findings warrant larger clinical trials that investigate the pain-mediating role of the axillary nerve in the perioperative setting.
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Acta Anaesthesiol Scand · Aug 2012
Measuring the effects of sevoflurane on electroencephalogram using sample entropy.
Monitoring the effect of anesthetic drugs on the neural system is a major ongoing challenge for anesthetists. During the past few years, several electroencephalogram (EEG)-based methods such as the response entropy (RE) as implemented in the Datex-Ohmeda M-Entropy Module have been proposed. In this paper, sample entropy is used to quantify the predictability of EEG series, which could provide an index to show the effect of sevoflurane anesthesia. The dose-response relation of sample entropy is compared with that of RE. ⋯ The results demonstrate that sample entropy can estimate the sevoflurane drug effect on the EEG more effectively than the commercial RE index with a stronger noise resistance.
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Acta Anaesthesiol Scand · Aug 2012
Desflurane-induced and ischaemic postconditioning against myocardial infarction are mediated by Pim-1 kinase.
Anaesthetic-induced (APOST) and ischaemic postconditioning (IPOST) against myocardial infarction are mediated via phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase/Akt. Pim-1 kinase is acting downstream of Akt and has recently been demonstrated to enhance cardiomyocyte survival. We tested the hypothesis that both APOST and IPOST are mediated by Pim-1 kinase. ⋯ These data suggest that Pim-1 kinase mediates both desflurane-induced postconditioning and IPOST in mice.
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Acta Anaesthesiol Scand · Aug 2012
Comparative StudyIsoflurane-induced post-conditioning in senescent hearts is attenuated by failure to activate reperfusion injury salvage kinase pathway.
We investigated the cardioprotective effects of isoflurane administered at the onset of reperfusion in senescent rat in vivo, and the activation of the reperfusion injury salvage kinase (RISK) pathway to address a possible mechanism underlying age-related differences. ⋯ We demonstrated that isoflurane post-conditions the heart in young but not in senescent rats. Failure to activate RISK pathway may contribute to attenuation of isoflurane-induced post-conditioning effect in senescent rats.
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Acta Anaesthesiol Scand · Aug 2012
Effects of propofol with hyperthermia in a rat model of endotoxemic shock.
We aimed to investigate the effects of active mild hyperthermia and the effects of active mild hyperthermia with propofol on mortality and inflammatory responses during endotoxin-induced shock in rats. ⋯ The mortality rates in the present study were extremely high; further hypotension and elevations in plasma pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokine concentrations after endotoxin injection were not attenuated by mild hyperthermia between 39 °C and 40 °C, but they were attenuated by propofol with mild hyperthermia.