Anesthesiology
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Back pain after epidural anesthesia with chloroprocaine.
Chloroprocaine has been associated with severe back pain after epidural anesthesia. Factors proposed to contribute to this problem are: 1) the preservative disodium ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), 2) large volumes of chloroprocaine, 3) low pH of chloroprocaine, and 4) local infiltration with chloroprocaine. ⋯ Large doses (> or = 40 ml) of chloroprocaine containing EDTA resulted in a greater incidence of deep burning lumbar back pain. Using 25 ml or less of the same solution resulted in an incidence of both types 1 and 2 postepidural anesthesia back pain similar to that in the lidocaine control group.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Postcesarean delivery epidural patient-controlled analgesia. Fentanyl or sufentanil?
The highly lipid-soluble opioids, fentanyl and sufentanil, frequently are used in combination with local anesthetic agents and/or epinephrine to provide postoperative epidural analgesia. The authors compared the incidence of side effects and patient satisfaction during prolonged epidural patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) infusions of these opioids in combination with bupivacaine and epinephrine. ⋯ Epidural PCA in both groups had no serious side effects and achieved a high level of patient satisfaction. Those receiving sufentanil made fewer PCA requests but had a significantly greater incidence of vomiting during the infusion and dizziness after the termination of the infusion. Epidural sufentanil offered no advantages over epidural fentanyl.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Clinical Trial
Randomized evaluation of pulse oximetry in 20,802 patients: II. Perioperative events and postoperative complications.
The authors describe the effect of pulse oximetry monitoring on the frequency of unanticipated perioperative events, changes in patient care, and the rate of postoperative complications in a prospective randomized study. ⋯ This study demonstrated that pulse oximetry can improve the anesthesiologist's ability to detect hypoxemia and related events in the OR and PACU and that the use of the oximeter was associated with a significant decrease in the rate of myocardial ischemia. Although monitoring with pulse oximetry prompted a number of changes in patient care, a reduction in the overall rate of postoperative complications was not observed.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Clinical Trial
Randomized evaluation of pulse oximetry in 20,802 patients: I. Design, demography, pulse oximetry failure rate, and overall complication rate.
Although pulse oximetry is currently in widespread use, there are few data documenting improvement in patient outcome as a result of the use of oximetry. The authors describe the study design, patient demographic findings, data validation, pulse oximetry failure rate, and overall postoperative complication rates in the first large prospective randomized multicenter clinical trial on perioperative pulse oximetry monitoring. ⋯ Despite the finding of a few significant inter-group differences, the randomization was well balanced with a high validity of data. The overall postoperative complication rate was similar to that in other recent morbidity and mortality studies.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Effects of fentanyl versus sufentanil in equianesthetic doses on middle cerebral artery blood flow velocity.
Sufentanil has been reported to increase cerebral blood flow in comparison with fentanyl. However, because of the use of animal models, supraclinical doses and/or background anesthetic agents, the clinical applicability of these studies remains difficult to assess. Therefore, transcranial Doppler ultrasonography was used to determine the cerebral hemodynamic effects of equianesthetic doses of fentanyl and sufentanil on middle cerebral artery (MCA) blood flow velocity in patients without intracranial pathologic conditions. ⋯ These data suggest that, at clinically relevant doses in the absence of other drugs, cerebral blood flow velocity is increased by both fentanyl and sufentanil. Furthermore, there appears to be no significant differences in the cerebral hemodynamic profiles of the two drugs, as assessed by transcranial Doppler ultrasonography.