Fig. 1

Time course of general anesthesia. During general anesthesia, the patient’s hemodynamics were stable and neither hypotension nor tachycardia was observed. Spontaneous respiration appeared shortly after the end of remimazolam administration, but the patient was unable to follow the indicated actions due to a lack of arousal. The patient’s level of consciousness did not improve even after 25 min had passed. The patient awoke promptly with 0.5 mg of flumazenil, allowing tracheal extubation. ×, the start and end of general anesthesia; T, tracheal intubation and extubation; ◎, the start and end of surgery