A large number of postoperative pulmonary outcome measures have been used, but most are poorly defined. Our four recommended outcome measures include a new definition of postoperative pulmonary complications, incorporating an assessment of severity. These definitions will meet the needs of most clinical effectiveness trials of treatments to improve postoperative pulmonary outcomes.

As standardised outcomes will support benchmarking and pooling (meta-analysis) of trials, one or more of these recommended endpoints should be considered for inclusion in clinical trials assessing patient comfort and pain after surgery.

Patients exposed to a surgical safety checklist experience better postoperative outcomes, but this could simply reflect wider quality of care in hospitals where checklist use is routine.

Intranasal DEX 2 μg·kg(-1) administered 30 min before anesthesia induction provides considerable effect to attenuate the increase in MAP caused by intubation response. Changes in HR and BIS also demonstrate that this kind of premedication provides effective attenuation of intubation response. And preoperative intranasal DEX 2 μg·kg(-1) produces optimal-sedation, more favorable anesthesia induction course in pediatric patients. Premedication of intranasal DEX is a considerable way to blunt cardiovascular and arousal responses to endotracheal intubation.