Ketamine was introduced commercially in 1970 with the manufacturer's description as a “rapidly acting, nonbarbiturate general anesthetic” and a suggestion that it would be useful for short procedures. With the help of its old unique pharmacological properties and newly found beneficial clinical properties, ketamine has survived the strong winds of time, and it currently has a wide variety of clinical applications. It's newly found neuroprotective, antiinflammatory and antitumor effects, and the finding of the usefulness of low dose ketamine regimens have helped to widen the clinical application profile of ketamine. The present article attempts to review the current useful applications of ketamine in anesthesia, pain and critical care. It is based on scientific evidence gathered from textbooks, journals, and electronic databases.

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Henoch-Schonlein purpura (HSP) is an autoimmune, multisystem, acute vasculitis of childhood commonly involving the skin, gut, joints and the kidneys. Fatal complications involving various systems can occur in this disease and careful perioperative management is advocated. We report here the occurrence of postoperative bradycardia and the successful perioperative management of a 12-year-old boy with HSP for diagnostic laparoscopy.

Abstarct Haemophilia is the oldest known rare genetic bleeding disorder that disrupts the blood clotting process. Although the level of haemophilia care has improved substantially, the problems of management in developing countries are poor awareness, high costs of treatment, inadequate diagnostic and coagulation screening facilities and scarce factor concentrates for therapy. We present here the problems in the perioperative management of a case of haemophilia A in India. It portrays the current picture of haemophilia management in many developing countries around the world.