Herbal medicine and anesthesia.
Complementary and alternative medicine is one of the fastest growing areas in health care. Many patients worldwide utilize these additional health care strategies in conjunction with standard medical therapies. Unfortunately little is understood about many of the interactions that can occur and as many as 50% of the patients do not inform their health care providers about these complementary and alternative therapies. The interactions that are most important in the perioperative period include sympathomimetic, sedative, and coagulopathic effects. Given the overall paucity of information regarding herbal medicines and their potential pertinent perioperative implications this domain requires a significant amount of further study and in my opinion would be fertile ground for federally funded requested projects.
Dorman
T
T