Caffeine - Essentials for anaesthesiologists: A narrative review.

Caffeine has a multitude of uses in anaesthesia, and numerous studies have evaluated its efficacy and usefulness in various aspects of anaesthesia and medical practice. Its various applications in anaesthesia include its role in awakening from anaesthesia, managing post-dural puncture headache, managing post-sedation paradoxical hyper-activity in children, post-operative bowel paralysis, and apnoea in paediatric populations, that is, apnoea in infancy, paediatric obstructive apnoea, and post-anaesthetic apnoea in pre-mature infants. Though the effects of caffeine on bronchial smooth muscle, neurological, and cardio-vascular systems are well known, the relatively little-known effects on the endocrine and gastro-intestinal (GI) system have been recently taking primacy for eliciting its therapeutic benefits.