Anesthesia and the gastrointestinal tract

Continuous Perioperative Thoracic Epidural Fentanyl-Bupivacaine Infusion vs. Continuous Perioperative Fentanyl Intravenous Infusion in Patients Undergoing Major Upper Abdominal Cancer Surgeries

“…Recent estimates indicate that millions of major surgical procedures are performed worldwide each year and patients undergoing gastrointestinal surgery for malignancy are typical representatives of such high-risk patients [1]. Major abdominal surgeries induce neurohormonal changes responsible for postoperative pain, various organ dysfunctions and prolonged hospitalization.…”

Oral etodolac, a COX-2 inhibitor, reduces postoperative pain immediately after fast-track cardiac surgery

“…In our study, the plasma concentration of etodolac increased gradually until 6 h after administration. It is possible that the absorption of etodolac in our study was delayed by the slow gastric emptying during anesthesia and cardiac surgery [18,19]. In the present study, we were not able to determine when the blood concentration reached its peak and how it was lowered after the peak.…”

Principles of Safety Pharmacology

“…However, the use of anaesthesia also results in a depression of compensatory mechanisms and may, depending upon the nature of the anaesthetic, actually increase the magnitude of a haemodynamic response compared to the same conscious animal model. As another consideration, parenteral dosing is normally required in anaesthetized models due to inhibition of peristaltic activity in the gastrointestinal system by most anaesthetic agents (Ng and Smith 2002;Torjman et al 2005). First, the response obtained under anaesthesia may differ from the target clinical population typically composed of conscious individuals (see Fig.…”