Anesthesiology
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Review Meta Analysis
Incidence of epidural hematoma, infection, and neurologic injury in obstetric patients with epidural analgesia/anesthesia.
Of the 4 million annual births in the United States, 2.4 million involve epidural analgesia. Serious adverse events are rare but are important in young women. Robust estimates for the risk of harm are not available. ⋯ A total of 1.37 million women received an epidural for childbirth, reported in 27 articles. Most information (85% of women) was in larger (> 10,000 women) studies published after 1990, with risk estimates as follows: epidural hematoma, 1 in 168,000; deep epidural infection, 1 in 145,000; persistent neurologic injury, 1 in 240,000; and transient neurologic injury, 1 in 6,700. Earlier and smaller studies produced significantly higher risk estimates for transient neurologic injury plus injury of unknown duration.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Opioid-volatile anesthetic synergy: a response surface model with remifentanil and sevoflurane as prototypes.
Combining a hypnotic and an analgesic to produce sedation, analgesia, and surgical immobility required for clinical anesthesia is more common than administration of a volatile anesthetic alone. The aim of this study was to apply response surface methods to characterize the interactions between remifentanil and sevoflurane. ⋯ Response surface analyses demonstrate a synergistic interaction between remifentanil and sevoflurane for sedation and all analgesic endpoints.