Patients' willingness to pay for anti-emetic treatment.

Background: Post-operative nausea and vomiting (PONV) is a common complication of anaesthesia. This study was conducted in 100 German and 100 Turkish patients scheduled for elective surgery under general anaesthesia to assess the amount patients were willing to pay for an anti-emetic that completely prevented PONV.

Methods: Post-operatively, using Dixon's up and down method, patients completed an interactive computer questionnaire with a random starting point to determine how much of their own money they were willing to pay for a totally effective anti-emetic treatment.

Systemic vascular reactivity in an aortic coarctation model of preeclampsia in the rat.

Preeclampsia (preECL), a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy, which occurs only in humans, is dangerous for mother and fetus. It may be caused by placental hypoxia triggering the release of a circulating factor that damages the maternal endothelium leading to vasoconstriction and hypertension. Our primary objective was to determine if systemic vascular reactivity is altered in a rat aortic coarctation (ACOR) model of preECL.

Use of the rat model to study hCG/LH effects on uterine blood flow.

Luteinizing hormone (LH) and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) share a common receptor. LH/hCG receptors, located in the vascular smooth muscle and endothelial cells of uterine blood vessels, are most numerous in smaller intramyometrial vessels and are cyclic in nature. There is a correlation between hCG levels and decreased uterine vascular resistance in humans, and in pseudopregnant rats, hCG decreases uterine blood flow.

Oestrous cycle and pregnancy alter the reactivity of the rat uterine vasculature.

Isolated uterine vascular beds from virgin and pregnant rats were used to assess vascular reactivity and the ability of nitric oxide (NO), prostanoids and endothelium-derived hyperpolarizing factor (EDHF) to modulate these responses. One uterine horn from female rats in each oestrous cycle day and gestation day 17 was removed and perfused with physiological saline solution. Tone was induced with cirazoline (1 micromol/l), and concentration-response curves to acetylcholine (ACh) generated.

Pregnancy-induced alterations of uterine arteriolar reactivity in the rat: observations with a new in vivo microcirculatory preparation.

Objective: The aim of this study was to compare reactivity of uterine arterioles in vivo between virgin and gravid rats.

Study Design: In anesthetized gravid and virgin rats circumferential arterioles were observed by videomicroscopy while vasoactive agonists were suffused over the uterus. Arteriolar diameter changes were compared.