Children and neonates anesthesia in magnetic resonance environment in Italy: an active call survey.

Background: Pediatric anesthesia care in the Magnetic Resonance Imaging is a challenge for clinicians. The recent debate about the role of anesthetic agent on neural development, encouraged an evaluation of their actual activity in this environment. In this active call survey, the authors sought to delineate the Italian situation regarding national centers, staff involved, monitoring tools available and sedation techniques.

Does caffeine improve respiratory rate during remifentanil target controlled infusion sedation? A case report in endoscopic sedation.

Sedation for endoscopic procedures may be challenging when facing patients with high risk. Traditional techniques, as propofol or meperidine/midazolam administration, cannot ensure an adequate level of safety and efficacy for these patients. Remifentanil infusion is a common alternative, but the incidence of apneic events does not allow achieving safely a good level of analgesia.

Minimizing stress with remifentanil in a patient with Takotsubo undergoing ophthalmic surgery.

Anesthesiological management of patients with Takotsubo syndrome (TTS) is a challenge of questions related to physiopathology, prognosis, and trigger causes. Relative rarity of this disease and lack of wide literature do not allow to state any negative or positive effect of the variety of drugs available for anesthesia. The authors report a case of a woman with a clear diagnosis of TTS and anxiety disorder, who underwent to cataract extractions at both eyes at two different times.

Experience of remifentanil in extremely low-birth-weight babies undergoing laparotomy.

Premature babies experience pain and require adequate analgesia for any painful procedure. Fentanyl and morphine resulted in safe and effective anesthesia in the past; however, their pharmacokinetics may be impaired in preterm babies with multiorgan failure. Remifentanil, despite the absence of available pharmacokinetic data in preterm infants and few reports in newborns, demonstrated its advantages in children undergoing either major surgery or minor painful procedures and has been shown to be useful even in neonates, because its elimination is independent of organ function.

Remifentanil in children.

Remifentanil has gained the confidence of anesthesiologists and has given a real opportunity to change the way anesthesia is given. It can be considered the ideal opioid despite many obstacles to pediatric use: the condition of 'off-label', the lack of wide randomized clinical trials, and the fear of adverse events because of its high potency. Experiences in the field with this opioid over the years encouraged its use.