Therapeutic coma or neuroprotection by anaesthetics

Some surgical patients are at an increased risk for developing cerebral isc haemia. A subset of these patients is believed to benefit from putative cer ebroprotective effects of anaesthetic agents. Therefore, in this setting these drugs could have therapeutic modalities, b esides their auxiliary functions to make surgery possible. However both ani mal and especially human data are very disappointing. Only the barbiturates and isoflurane have an experimental record warranting further research to delineate proper indications for their use as neuropro tective agents in surgical patients.