When dosed appropriately, imipenem/cilastatin may be used to treat serious infections in critically ill patients with central nervous system (CNS) disorders or injury with minimal seizure risk. Imipenem/cilastatin safety data is lacking for meningitis and cautious use is warranted.

Current data suggest that statins may be a reasonable treatment option for the prevention and management of cerebral vasospasm after aSAH. However, results from large, well-controlled trials have not been published.

Myocardial contractility in open-chest anesthetized (sodium pentobarbital) dogs was varied while ventricular pressure, coronary perfusion pressure, and coronary tone were held constant. Under those conditions, changes in regional blood flow should reflect changes only in intramyocardial compression related to the altered inotropic state. Increasing contractility with isoproterenol caused flow to decrease in the outer myocardial layers without change at the subendocardium. When contractility was decreased with pentobarbital, flow at the subendocardium was increased with little change in the outer layers. By manipulating perfusion pressure in the latter experiments it was demonstrated that subendocardial compression was falling from a starting value that was somewhat above peak ventricular pressure.

No abstract