Surgical resection of the primary tumor may enhance the metastasis and recurrence of cancer. The reaction of patients to surgery includes changes of the immune system, the inflammatory system and the neuroendocrine system. In the perioperative period, anesthetics are used both for anesthesia and analgesia. There are several studies showing that the progression of cancer can be influenced by man...

Although local anesthetics have an acceptable safety profile, significant morbidity and mortality have been associated with their use. Inadvertent intravascular injection of local anesthetics and/or the use of excessive doses have been the most frequent causes of local anesthetic systemic toxicity (LAST). Furthermore, excessive doses of local anesthetics injected locally into the tissues may le...

The anesthesia has been improved all over the years. However, it can have impact on health, in both patients and animals anesthetized, as well as professionals exposed to inhaled anesthetics. There is continuing effort to understand the possible effects of anesthetics at molecular levels. Knowing the effects of anesthetic agents on genetic material could be a valuable basic support to better un...

The anesthesia has been improved all over the years. However, it can have impact on health, in both patients and animals anesthetized, as well as professionals exposed to inhaled anesthetics. There is continuing effort to understand the possible effects of anesthetics at molecular levels. Knowing the effects of anesthetic agents on genetic material could be a valuable basic support to better un...

Anesthesia for electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) usually involves the intravenous (IV) administration of drugs such as methohexital, thiopental, propofol, etomidate, or ketamine. Sevoflurane is an inhalational anesthetic agent that has been available past 3 decades. Although many studies have examined sevoflurane in context ECT, treatment guidelines make either no mention only passing its potenti...

Movement sensitive giant neurons in the lobula plate of the fly (H,-neurons, V-neurons) are affected by low con­ centrations of volatile anesthetics (halothane, N20): the spike frequency generated by motion in the preferred di­ rection decreases, that in the opposite direction increases. This means that the response to the motion stimulus de­ fined as the spike frequency modulation decreases. H...

Incubation of membrane fragments bearing acetylcholine receptors from Torpedo californica under an atmosphere of 3% halothane, 1% chloroform, or 6% diethyl ether greatly facilitates the carbamoylcholine-induced structural transition of the acetylcholine receptor reflected by alterations in the rate of binding of (125)I-labeled alpha-bungarotoxin. The half-time of this ligand-induced conformatio...

General anesthesia requires managing a complex array of anesthetic agents that act on an intricate web of neural connections or neural nexus. Both inhaled and intravenous anesthetics must intervene at some level of the neural nexus that provides for amnesia, immobility, hypnosis, and suppression of noxious reflexes. These interactions occur at the spinal and supraspinal level and involve spinal...

Local anesthetics such as dibucaine, QX572, tetracaine, and phenacaine, as well as other drugs with local anesthetic-like properties (e.g., mepacrine, propranolol, and SKF 525A) inhibit the specific calmodulin-dependent stimulation of erythrocyte Ca2+-ATPase (ATP phosphohydrolase, EC 3.6.1.3) and cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases (3',5'-cyclic-nucleotide 5'-nucleotidohydrolase, EC 3.1.4.17) ...

Although general anesthetics are clinically important and widely used, their molecular mechanisms of action remain poorly understood. Volatile anesthetics such as isoflurane (ISO) are thought to alter neuronal function by depressing excitatory and facilitating inhibitory neurotransmission through direct interactions with specific protein targets, including voltage-gated sodium channels (Na(v))....