Crystalloid versus red blood cell-containing medium in the Langendorff-perfused isolated heart preparation.

Background: The isolated heart model is widely used for the assessment of coronary vascular response under various experimental conditions. As medium perfusate influences oxygenation conditions, coronary vascular response and myocardial consumption performance may differ between isolated hearts perfused with from with Krebs-Henseleit solution or Krebs-Henseleit mixed with red blood cells (KH-RBC).

Methods: Coronary vascular response to endothelium-dependent and independent vasodilators as well as myocardial performance and oxygen consumption to isoproterenol infusion were compared in isolated rabbit hearts perfused with Krebs-Henseleit or KH-RBC.

A comparison of intrathecal opioid and intravenous analgesia for the incidence of cardiovascular, respiratory, and renal complications after abdominal aortic surgery.

Unlabelled: Major surgery evokes a stress response that can produce deleterious consequences, especially in a population at high risk for those complications. We tested the hypothesis that decreasing or eliminating one of the sources of stress by providing intense analgesia in the immediate postoperative period via application of neuraxial opioids would decrease major nonsurgical complications. Two-hundred-seventeen patients scheduled to undergo abdominal aortic surgery were randomly allocated to receive either general anesthesia alone (control) or general anesthesia combined with intrathecal opioid (1 micro g/kg sufentanil with 8 micro g/kg preservative-free morphine injected at the L4-5 interspace).

Terlipressin-ephedrine versus ephedrine to treat hypotension at the induction of anesthesia in patients chronically treated with angiotensin converting-enzyme inhibitors: a prospective, randomized, double-blinded, crossover study.

Unlabelled: In patients chronically treated with angiotensin converting-enzyme inhibitors (ACEI), typically selected doses of ephedrine do not always restore arterial blood pressure when anesthesia-induced hypotension occurs. We postulated that the administration of terlipressin, an agonist of the vasopressin system, with ephedrine more effectively restores pressure in this setting than the administration of ephedrine alone. This prospective, randomized, cross-over, double-blinded study compared terlipressin combined with ephedrine (n = 19) with ephedrine alone (n = 21) in treating hypotension at the induction of anesthesia in 40 ACEI-treated patients undergoing hypotension (mean arterial blood pressure [MAP] <65 mm Hg or <30% of baseline value) after standardized anesthetic protocol (target-controlled IV anesthesia with propofol).