Suvorexant a novel, orexin receptor antagonist was recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of sleep onset and sleep maintenance insomnia in August 2014. Multiple animal and human studies support the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of suvorexant for patients of various profiles. Current recommendations advocate for a starting dose of 10 mg and a maximum dose...

Oxatomide at therapeutic doses generates occasionally drowsiness in children. When administered at toxic doses, however oxatomide may induce long lasting impaired consciousness. We now report a case of severe long lasting impaired consciousness induced by therapeutic doses of oxatomide occurring in a child affected by acute gastroenteritis. The clinical symptoms, the pharmacogenetic tests of po...

The effect of anesthetic technique on postoperative outcomes remains in question. This systematic review compares the role of regional versus general anesthesia, with a particular focus on postoperative cognitive function. Potentially relevant articles were identified by searching publicly available computerized databases for this systematic review. Any surgical procedure was accepted with the ...

There are advantages to be gained from using an oral barbiturate as a pre-operative sedative. Heptabarbitone (Medomin) has been given in a dose of 400 mg to fifty healthy patients undergoing minor gynaecological operations. Using a scoring system, the sedative effects of diis drug have been measured and found to be comparable with the sedation produced by papaveretum 20 mg and hyoscine 0.4 mg a...

OBJECTIVE To compare how newly initiated treatment with benzodiazepines, Z-hypnotics or both associates with the reception of disability pension among 40,661 individuals of a working age. DESIGN Prescription register study. SETTING Norwegian nationwide prescriptions socio-economic and disability status data. METHODS Cox regression analyses. SUBJECTS New benzodiazepine or Z-hypnotic user...

BACKGROUND We evaluated the sedative, haemodynamic and respiratory effects of dexmedetomidine and compared them with those of midazolam in children undergoing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) procedures. METHODS Eighty children aged between 1 and 7 yr were randomly allocated to receive sedation with either dexmedetomidine (group D, n=40) or midazolam (group M, n=40). The loading dose of the s...

OBJECTIVES To determine the prevalence of medical use of 4 classes of prescription medications relative to nonmedical use (illicit use), to examine the relative rates among the 4 drug classes, and to assess whether gender differences exist in the trading, selling, loaning, or giving away of medications. DESIGN A Web-based survey was administered to 7th- to 12th-grade students residing in 1 et...

Objective: To evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of the sedation practice adopted for paediatric patients undergoing magnetic resonance imaging examination in a local hospital in Hong Kong. Materials and Methods: 120 consecutive children with a mean age of 3.2 years (range, 13 days to 13 years) undergoing magnetic resonance imaging and requiring sedation were audited. The types and route...

Midazolam is a type of anesthetic agent frequently used for conscious sedation during a variety of medical procedures. Anaphylactic reactions to midazolam are rarely reported. However, we observed a case of midazolam hypersensitivity in which emergency measures were required to ensure patient recovery after administration of midazolam as a sedative. The occurrence of the anaphylactic reaction t...

In a recent issue of Critical Care, Qiao and colleagues showed in a rat model of sepsis that dexmedetomidine and midazolam suppress the generation of pro-inflammatory mediators but the effects vary between agents. While dexmedetomidine limited apoptosis to a greater extent than midazolam, both agents significantly reduced short-term mortality compared with saline. This study, in addition to tho...