background: liver ischemic insults are important sources of liver injuries leading to production of reactive oxygen species (ros) and mediating liver cell injury. glutathione mediated mechanisms are among the most important defense mechanisms of the liver; n-acetylcysteine (nac) provides cysteine for glutathione defense mechanisms. patients undergoing cardiac surgery are at increased risk of li...

OBJECTIVE To find the clinical and socio-demographic determinants for Hong Kong Chinese women who preferred elective caesarean section. DESIGN Cross-sectional interview survey. SETTING University teaching hospital, Hong Kong. PARTICIPANTS A cohort of consecutive Hong Kong Chinese pregnant women (n=660) attending a government-funded obstetric unit catering deliveries in the New Territories...

Although preoperative autologous blood donation is employed in elective surgery, this is declining because of the increasingly safe allogeneic blood supply. However, it continues to be used because of the public's perception of allogeneic blood risks and increasing blood shortages. Patients may donate a unit of blood (450 +/- 45 ml) as often as twice weekly, up to 72 hours before surgery. Preop...

Background: Clinical investigations have reported several anesthetic properties of intrathecal injections of meperidine. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of adding meperidine to intrathecal heavy lidocaine on hemodynamic changes and blood loss in patients undergoing elective suprapubic open prostatectomy. Methods: In a randomized double-blind clinical trial, 77 pa...

BACKGROUND Allocation of the correct amount of operating room (OR) "block time" can provide surgeons with access to sufficient OR time to complete their elective cases while optimally matching staffing with the elective case workload (to maximize labor productivity). To evaluate how to predict accurately total hours of elective cases performed by a surgical group using data from surgical servic...