A recently published meta-analysis including studies considering all volatile anesthetics showed no reduction in myocardial infarction and perioperative death rate. However the newer volatile anesthetics (desflurane and sevoflurane) seem to have more prominent cardioprotective properties and numerous apparently positive reports targeted to surrogate end-points, yet severely underpowered, have appeared in the literature. Of interest, many of these studies were not included in the above cited meta-analysis.