Ropivacaine intervention substantially attenuated the inflammatory response in acute lung injury and thus may carry an interesting potential for antiinflammatory treatment.

Perineural catheters are increasingly used worldwide for the treatment of postoperative pain in orthopedics. Long-term complications associated with the placement of a perineural catheter remain largely unstudied. We investigated the efficacy and the acute and late complications associated with the continuous popliteal nerve block. One-thousand-one patients undergoing elective surgery of the ankle or foot and scheduled to have a continuous popliteal nerve block were prospectively evaluated. All patients received an initial bolus of 40 mL ropivacaine 0.5% through the catheter. A continuous infusion of ropivacaine 0.3% initiated 6 h after the initial bolus was administered for the first 24 h and then decreased to ropivacaine 0.2% until the end of the study period. The success rate and acute complications were recorded. The overall success rate was 97.5%. The highest success rate was associated with foot inversion. Acute complications consisted of paresthesias during nerve localization (0.5%), pain during local anesthetic application (0.8%), and blood aspiration (0.4%). No central nervous system toxicity or cardiotoxicity occurred. Late complications were checked at 10 days and 3 mo after surgery. These included two cases of inflammation at the puncture site. No infection or neuropathy was observed. The use of continuous popliteal nerve block for ankle or foot surgery is associated with frequent success and few acute and late complications.

Increased aortic stiffness, as assessed by PWV measured during preoperative anaesthetic evaluation, is associated with more pronounced hypotension during induction of anaesthesia. Measurement of aortic stiffness in the elderly may thus represent a valid indicator of the risk of hypotension during anaesthesia induction.

The effects of acute reduction in arterial blood pressure in severe anaphylactic shock (AS) on cerebral blood flow are of paramount importance to be investigated. We studied cerebral circulation and oxygenation in a model of severe AS and compared it with a pharmacologically induced arterial hypotension of similar magnitude. Anaphylactic shock was induced by 1 mg intravenous ovalbumin (OVA) in sensitized rats. Rats were randomized to three groups: (i) no resuscitation (OVA; n = 10) (ii) intravenous volume expansion (10 mL in 10 min after OVA injection) (OVA + VE; n = 10); (iii) control hypotension (100 μg of nicardipine followed by continuous infusion of 1 mg · 100 g · h intravenously; NICAR; n = 10). Mean arterial pressure (MAP), carotid blood flow (CBF), cardiac output, cerebral cortical blood flow (CCBF; estimated by laser Doppler technique), and cerebral tissue oxygen pressure (PtiO2) were recorded over the 15 min following AS induction in all three groups. Results are expressed as mean (SD). One minute after OVA or nicardipine injection, there was a rapid and significant 50% decrease in MAP from basal values. In the OVA group, AS severely altered systemic and cerebral hemodynamics in 5 min: 93% (SD, 4%) decrease in CBF, 66% (SD, 8%) in CCBF, and 44% (SD, 8%) in PtiO2; the decrease in CBF was significantly (P< 0.05) attenuated in the OVA + VE group; however, CCBF and PtiO2 were not statistically different in the OVA versus OVA + VE groups. On the contrary, nicardipine-induced hypotension had only a limited impact on CBF, cardiac output, CCBF, and PtiO2 for a similar MAP decrease. There was a linear relation between CCBF and blood pressure in the OVA (regression slope: 0.87 [SD, 0.06]; median r = 0.81) but not in the NICAR group (regression slope: 0.23 [SD, 0.32]; median r = 0.33). Anaphylactic shock resulted in severe impairment of cerebral blood flow and oxygenation, beyond what could be expected from the level of arterial hypotension.

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