During general anaesthesia even healthy lungs tend to collapse. Thus, up to 20% of previously functional lung tissue may be lost for gas exchange. It should be advantageous to treat this pathologic condition. After explaining the clinical problem of lung collapse, the concept of opening these lungs and keeping them open will be discussed. Some results of the first randomized clinical trials on intraoperative lung recruitment will be presented. Finally, a systematic description of all treatment steps tries to provide the anaesthesiologist with a useful practical guide for applying the "alveolar recruitment strategy" in their daily care of patients undergoing general anaesthesia.

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In this study, patients were regularly admitted to the ICU despite their contrary wish/directive or an unfavorable clinical condition. Although this was registered in only 1 % of all admissions, optimizing preICU admission information flow with regard to relevant exclusion criteria not only helps respect patient autonomy but also allows for more adequate resource allocation.

In the last years numerous investigations focussed on anaesthesiological strategies for perioperative care of patients with or at risk for coronary artery disease (CAD). In these publications problems concerning preoperative risk stratification, prevention of intra-and postoperative myocardial ischaemia as well as anaesthesiological methods were discussed. However, some relevant issues are unsolved until now. Therefore, this mini symposium was aimed to present and discuss recent concepts of anaesthesia in patients at increased cardiac risk.Lange Zeit wurde die Frage kontrovers diskutiert, ob kardiale Risikopatienten von einer Regionalanästhesie profitieren würden. Erschwert wurde die Beantwortung dieser Fragestellung durch die Vielzahl methodisch sehr unterschiedlich konzipierter Studi-