The SCA detects nociceptive pain fast and continuously, specific to the individual, with higher sensitivity and specificity than other available objective methods.

Olive oil induced lower triacylglycerol concentrations and higher HDL-cholesterol concentrations than did butter, without eliciting significant changes in glucose, insulin, or fatty acids. Furthermore, olive oil induced higher concentrations of GLP-1, which may indicate a relation between fatty acid composition, incretin responses, and triacylglycerol metabolism postprandially in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Background: Skin conductance (SC) as a measure of emotional state or arousal may be a tool for monitoring surgical stress in anaesthesia. When an outgoing sympathetic nervous burst occurs to the skin, the palmar and plantar sweat glands are filled up, and the SC increases before the sweat is removed and the SC decreases. This creates a SC fluctuation. The purpose of this study was to measure SC during laparoscopic cholecystectomy with propofol and remifentanil anesthaesia and to evaluate whether number and amplitude of SC fluctuations correlate with perioperative stress monitoring. Methods: Eleven patients were studied nine times before, during and after anaesthesia. SC was compared to changes in stress measures such as blood pressure, heart rate, norepinephrine and epinephrine levels. SC was also compared to changes in Bispectral index (BIS). Results: The blood pressure, epinephrine levels and norepinephrine levels were positively correlated with both the number (P Ͻ 0.001) and amplitude (P Ͻ 0.01) of the SC fluctu-

SummaryThe number of fluctuations of skin conductance per second correlates with postoperative pain. The aim of this prospective study was to test the cut-off value for the number of fluctuations of skin conductance per second obtained from a previous study. Seventy-five patients were asked to quantify their level of pain on a numeric rating scale (0-10) in the recovery room. The number of fluctuations of skin conductance per second was recorded simultaneously. The number of fluctuations of skin conductance per second was different between patients with no (0.07), mild (0.16), moderate (0.28) and severe pain (0.33); p < 0.001. The tested cut-off value for the number of fluctuations of skin conductance per second (0.1) distinguished a numeric rating scale £ 3 from > 3 with 88.5% sensitivity and 67.7% specificity. The number of fluctuations of skin conductance per second may be a useful means of assessing postoperative pain. Postoperative complications may be prevented by a suitable choice of analgesic technique [1]. Moreover, adequate pain control is a prerequisite for the use of rehabilitation programmes to accelerate recovery from surgery [1], and existing data indicate that effective pain relief may lead to an improved overall postoperative outcome [2].Accurate assessment of postoperative pain is a key factor for successful pain management. Though various scoring systems are available for this purpose, they rely almost entirely on the co-operation of the patient. Hence these systems are bound to fail in unconscious, confused or otherwise uncooperative subjects. A more objective, subject-independent parameter for the assessment of pain is therefore highly desirable. As pain greatly modifies the surgical stress response [3], monitoring of parameters of postoperative stress, such as sympathetic tone, could be a helpful tool for assessment of analgesia. Increased sympathetic tone leads to a higher rate of firing in sympathetic, postganglionic cholinergic neurones [4,5]. The resulting change of sweat gland filling can be measured in terms of skin conductance. The number of fluctuations within the mean skin conductance per second has been reported to correlate well with intra-operative noxious stimuli, with a sensitivity and specificity of 86% for their detection [6].In a pilot study [7] we confirmed correlation between the number of fluctuations of skin conductance per second and postoperative pain in the recovery room rated on a numeric rating scale (0-10). As the number of fluctuations of skin conductance per second was highly Anaesthesia, 2007, 62, pages 989-993