Desflurane versus sevoflurane to reduce blood loss in maxillofacial surgery.

Purpose: In our study, desflurane was hypothesized to reduce blood loss more than sevoflurane, both used with targeted mild controlled hypotension.

Patients And Methods: A total of 20 American Society of Anesthesiologists Class I patients undergoing maxillofacial elective surgery for maxillary and mandibular osteotomies were randomized to a desflurane group or a sevoflurane group. Anesthesia was performed with an end tidal value of the inhaled agent to obtain a bispectral index value <30 but without burst-suppression patterns (minimal alveolar concentration age-corrected between 0.

Behavior of B-type natriuretic peptide during mechanical ventilation and spontaneous breathing after extubation.

Background: The behavior of B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) is assessed during mechanical ventilation (MV) and spontaneous breathing after extubation in critical patients.

Methods: Thirty patients admitted in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) were enrolled. BNP, fluid balance (FB), airway pressure (AP) and dobutamine infusion needing (DP) were registered in three stages: T0, admission to ICU; T1, before extubation; T2, 24 h after extubation.

Sufentanil-propofol vs remifentanil-propofol during total intravenous anesthesia for neurosurgery. A multicentre study.

Background: In a randomised, prospective multi-centre study, we compared the intraoperative and postoperative effects of two opioids: sufentanil and remifentanil, in combination with propofol in two groups of patients undergoing neurosurgery.

Methods: After Local Ethics Committee approval and informed consent obtaining, 69 patients undergoing neurosurgery for supratentorial tumours, between 18 and 75 years of age were randomised to receive either sufentanil or remifentanil in combination with propofol. Intraoperative and postoperative haemodynamic variables, recovery times (time to eye opening and to extubation), the incidence of postoperative respiratory depression, pain, nausea and vomiting were also evaluated.

Spectral entropy assessment with auditory evoked potential in neuroanesthesia.

Objective: The assessment of the level of anesthesia is a very hard task, since no gold standard has stood out in the past three decades. Middle Latency Auditory Evoked Potential (MLAEP) is one of the most popular neurophysiological tools for anesthesia monitoring. Recently, Spectral Entropy (SpEn) has been introduced: it provides two different parameters, State Entropy (SE) and Response Entropy (RE).