Anesthesiology
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Ambulatory surgery is growing in popularity worldwide. For example, 50-70% of surgical procedures in North America are performed on an ambulatory basis. Use of Bispectral Index (BIS) monitoring for titration of general anesthesia may allow use of less anesthetics, reduction in side effects, and faster patient recovery. ⋯ The use of BIS monitoring modestly reduced anesthetic consumption, risk of nausea and vomiting, and recovery room time. These benefits did not reduce time spent in the ambulatory surgery unit, and cost of the BIS electrode exceeded any cost savings.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Cardioprotective properties of sevoflurane in patients undergoing coronary surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass are related to the modalities of its administration.
Experimental studies have related the cardioprotective effects of sevoflurane both to preconditioning properties and to beneficial effects during reperfusion. In clinical studies, the cardioprotective effects of volatile agents seem more important when administered throughout the procedure than when used only in the preconditioning period. The authors hypothesized that the cardioprotective effects of sevoflurane observed in patients undergoing coronary surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass are related to timing and duration of its administration. ⋯ In patients undergoing coronary artery surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass, the cardioprotective effects of sevoflurane were clinically most apparent when it was administered throughout the operation.
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Autoregressive modeling with exogenous input of middle latency auditory evoked potentials (A-Line autoregressive index [AAI]) has been proposed for monitoring depth of anesthesia in adults. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of the AAI during induction of anesthesia with sevoflurane and remifentanil in pediatric patients. ⋯ During induction of pediatric patients with sevoflurane, the AAI is of higher value in predicting anesthetic states than hemodynamic variables and reliably differentiates between the awake and anesthetized states. However, individual AAI values demonstrate significant variability and overlap between different clinical conditions.
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Clinical Trial
Lumbar plexus in children. A sonographic study and its relevance to pediatric regional anesthesia.
Pediatric regional anesthesia has gained increasing interest over the past decades. The current study was conducted to investigate the lumbar paravertebral region and the lumbar plexus at L3-L4 and L4-L5 by means of sonography to obtain fundamentals for the performance of ultrasound-guided posterior lumbar plexus blocks. ⋯ Sonography of the lumbar plexus in children proved to be feasible. Skin-plexus distances correlated with the children's weight rather than with their age. The sonographic findings were fundamental for the performance of successful ultrasound-guided posterior approaches in a small group of pediatric patients.