Mayo Clinic researchers have found that children exposed to anesthesia during Cesarean section are not at any higher risk for learning disabilities later in life than children not delivered by C-section. These findings are reported in the current issue of the journal Anesthesiology.

A team of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) physicians has developed a new general anesthetic that may be safer for critically ill patients. In the August issue of Anesthesiology, they describe preclinical studies of the drug called MOC-etomidate – a chemically altered version of an exiting anesthetic – which does not cause the sudden drop in blood pressure seen with most anesthetics or prolonged suppression of adrenal gland activity, a problem with the original version of the drug.

Researchers at Rhode Island Hospital have created the first animal model that can reveal the side effects of anesthetic agents (the substances used to block pain during surgery) in individuals genetically predisposed to sudden cardiac death.

The next time you have surgery McSleepy may be with you in the operating room. Canadian researchers have developed a machine that will send you off to Dreamland. McSleepy is the new system developed by the researchers that administers drugs for general anesthesia.

Researchers at McGill University and the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) have performed the world’s first totally automated administration of an anesthetic. Nicknamed “McSleepy,” the new system developed by the researchers administers drugs for general anesthesia and monitors their separate effects completely automatically, with no manual intervention.

In studies of human brain cells, the widely-used anesthetic desflurane does not contribute to increased production of amyloid-beta protein; however, when combined with low oxygen conditions, it can produce more of this Alzheimer’s associated protein.

A new study raised concerns about the technologies and methods used to detect anesthesia awareness, or "unintended intra-operative awareness" that occurs during general anesthesia, when a patient has not had enough general anesthetic or analgesic to prevent consciousness.

Aetna has announced that, based on input from the AGA Institute and discussions with a number of gastroenterologists, it will not implement Clinical Policy Bulletin 0740 on April 1, 2008, as planned.

Women's bodies and medical needs are vastly different than men's way beyond their reproductive systems. Women wake sooner from anesthesia, have less familiar symptoms of cardiovascular disease and are more likely to suffer from depression and sleep problems-- just to name a few of the differences.

Researchers at the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) in Lebanon have found that administering a lidocaine lollipop as a single-agent anesthetic to patients undergoing an upper gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy procedure eliminated the need for sedation in the majority of patients.

A Mayo Clinic review of patients’ responses to a drug used to control nausea and vomiting during anesthesia for general surgery questions a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warning against the drug’s use. This study appears in the current issue of the journal Anesthesiology.

Mayo Clinic physicians have adapted real-time 3-D ultrasound imaging devices -- including one designed to look at an infant’s heart -- so that they can watch as they use a needle filled with anesthetic to numb individual nerves located inches under the skin.