Emergence times and airway reactions during general anaesthesia with remifentanil and a laryngeal mask airway: A multicentre randomised controlled trial.

Background: Avoidance of airway complications and rapid emergence from anaesthesia are indispensable for the use of a laryngeal mask airway (LMA). Evidence from adequately powered randomised studies with a low risk of bias for the optimal anaesthetic in this context is limited.

Objective: We tested the hypothesis that when using remifentanil-based intra-operative analgesia, desflurane would be the most suitable anaesthetic: with noninferiority in the occurrence of upper airway complications and superiority in emergence times compared with sevoflurane or propofol.

Direct inhibition, but indirect sensitization of pacemaker activity to sympathetic tone by the interaction of endotoxin with HCN-channels.

In critically ill patients regulation of heart-rate is often severely disturbed. Interaction of bacterial endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide, LPS) with hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated cation-(HCN)-channels may interfere with heart-rate regulation. This study analyzes the effect of LPS, the HCN-channel blocker ivabradine or Ca(2+) -channel blockers (nifedipine, verapamil) on pacemaking in spontaneously beating neonatal rat cardiomyocytes (CM) in vitro.

Human 5-HT₄receptor stimulation in atria of transgenic mice.

In human atrium, serotonin (5-HT) exerts pleiotropic effects, which are thought to be mediated via 5-HT4 receptors. Here, we used transgenic mice (TG) that overexpress the human 5-HT4(a) receptor under control of the heart-specific α-myosin heavy chain promoter in the atria (and ventricles). Contractile studies were performed in isolated electrically driven left atrial preparations and spontaneously beating right atrial preparation of TG and littermate control mice (wild type (WT)).

Treatment of vertebrobasilar insufficiency--associated vertigo with a fixed combination of cinnarizine and dimenhydrinate.

Thirty-seven patients suffering from vertigo associated with vertebrobasilar insufficiency participated in our prospective, single-center, double-blind, comparative study. Patients were randomly allocated to treatment with placebo; betahistine (12 mg betahistine dimesylate, one tablet three times daily); or the fixed combination of 20 mg cinnarizine and 40 mg dimenhydrinate (one tablet three times daily) for 4 weeks. The primary efficacy end point was the decrease of the mean vertigo score (S(M)), which was based on the patients' assessments of 12 individual vertigo symptoms after 4 weeks of treatment.