Validation of the Simplified Palliative Prognostic Index to Predict Survival for Advanced Cancer Patients in Home Hospice Setting.

Background: The simplified Palliative Prognostic Index (sPPI) substitutes a single item from the Communication Capacity Scale (CCS) for the delirium item of the original PPI. This study aimed to examine the validity of the sPPI for patients with advanced cancer in a home-based hospice care setting.

Methods: This study included 75 patients with advanced cancer who received home-based hospice care.

The optimal effect-site concentration of remifentanil to attenuate the pain caused by propofol.

Background: The injection pain of propofol is a frequent and well-known adverse effect. This study was designed to determine the optimal effect-site concentration of remifentanil for minimizing injection pain during induction with propofol.

Methods: A total intravenous anesthetic technique was used for patients undergoing general anesthesia and remifentanil was pretreated to reach a certain target concentration before propofol injection.

Bupivacaine and ropivacaine suppress glycine- and glutamate-induced ion currents in acutely dissociated rat hippocampal neurons.

Bupivacaine and ropivacaine are local surgical anesthetics with great efficacy in post-operative pain relief and labor analgesia. In the present study, the effects of bupivacaine and ropivacaine on ion currents induced by glycine and glutamate in acutely dissociated hippocampal CA1 neurons of rats were investigated via a nystatin-perforated patch clamping method at a clamped voltage. The magnitude of the glycine-induced ion currents was decreased reversibly and in a time-dependent manner by continuous application of 0.