12/17/2024
While modern anesthesia is very safe, anesthesia adverse events, or complications from anesthesia unrelated to a patient’s underlying medical condition, remain. These can include nausea, vomiting, confusion, neurotoxicity, and respiratory complications, all of which can worsen patient outcomes.1 In order to predict how a patient might respond to anesthesia, or to infer what predisposed a patient to an adverse event after the fact, researchers look to biomarkers—any measurable substance or molecule that is indicative of a disease or health outcome. Recently, researchers have identified several promising biomarkers for various anesthesia adverse events, including the few that are outlined below.
While modern anesthesia is very safe, anesthesia adverse events, or complications from anesthesia unrelated to a patient’s underlying medical condition, remain. These can include nausea, vomiting, confusion, neurotoxicity, and respiratory...