Juhász M, et al. - Among patients (n=29) undergoing general anesthesia with sevoflurane, researchers evaluated systemic and cerebral hemodynamic alterations as well as cerebral CO₂ (carbon dioxide)-reactivity. They maintained anesthesia with 1 minimum alveolar concentration (MAC) sevoflurane in 40% oxygen. They found a significant reduction in systemic mean arterial pressure during anesthetic induction and noted that it continued to be the same throughout the study duration. During the anesthetic induction, a significant increase was evident in central aortic and peripheral pulse pressure and augmentation index as markers of arterial stiffness; these continued to be stable at the time points when target CO₂ levels were reached. In this study, preserved cerebral autoregulation and CO₂-reactivity were observed at 1 MAC sevoflurane.