Anesthesiology
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Review Historical Article
A Beautiful Friendship-and a Lesson about Friends and Colleagues: A Classic Partnership Revisited.
David Warner, M. D., and Michael Todd, M. D., first met in 1985. ⋯ That collaboration has now lasted for 35 yr, resulting in more than 70 joint publications. More importantly, they have had the privilege of working together with close to 1,000 colleagues from around the world, in a dozen medical specialties. Their careers are an example of what can be accomplished by friendship, mutual commitment, persistence, and a willingness to join with others.
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The American Society of Anesthesiologists; All India Difficult Airway Association; European Airway Management Society; European Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care; Italian Society of Anesthesiology, Analgesia, Resuscitation and Intensive Care; Learning, Teaching and Investigation Difficult Airway Group; Society for Airway Management; Society for Ambulatory Anesthesia; Society for Head and Neck Anesthesia; Society for Pediatric Anesthesia; Society of Critical Care Anesthesiologists; and the Trauma Anesthesiology Society present an updated report of the Practice Guidelines for Management of the Difficult Airway.
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Pulmonary atelectasis is common in the perioperative period. Physiologically, it is produced when collapsing forces derived from positive pleural pressure and surface tension overcome expanding forces from alveolar pressure and parenchymal tethering. ⋯ Mechanical ventilation of a heterogeneously aerated lung (e.g., in the presence of atelectatic lung tissue) involves biomechanical processes that may precipitate further lung damage: concentration of mechanical forces, propagation of gas-liquid interfaces, and remote overdistension. Knowledge of such pathophysiologic mechanisms of atelectasis and their consequences in the healthy and diseased lung should guide optimal clinical management.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Poor Correlation between Diaphragm Thickening Fraction and Transdiaphragmatic Pressure in Mechanically Ventilated Patients and Healthy Subjects.
The relationship between the diaphragm thickening fraction and the transdiaphragmatic pressure, the reference method to evaluate the diaphragm function, has not been clearly established. This study investigated the global and intraindividual relationship between the thickening fraction of the diaphragm and the transdiaphragmatic pressure. The authors hypothesized that the diaphragm thickening fraction would be positively and significantly correlated to the transdiaphragmatic pressure, in both healthy participants and ventilated patients. ⋯ Overall, diaphragm function as assessed with transdiaphragmatic pressure was weakly related to diaphragm thickening fraction. The diaphragm thickening fraction should not be used in healthy subjects or ventilated patients when changes in diaphragm function are evaluated.
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Review
Opioids and Public Health: The Prescription Opioid Ecosystem and Need for Improved Management.
While U. S. opioid prescribing has decreased 38% in the past decade, opioid deaths have increased 300%. This opioid paradox is poorly recognized. ⋯ It introduces concepts of a prescription opioid ecosystem and opioid pool, and it discusses how the pool can be influenced by supply-side, demand-side, and opioid returns factors. It illuminates pressing policy needs for an opioid ecosystem that enables proper opioid stewardship, identifies associated responsibilities, and emphasizes the necessity of making opioid returns as easy and common as opioid prescribing, in order to minimize the size of the opioid pool available for potential diversion, misuse, overdose, and death. Approaches are applicable to opioid prescribing in general, and to opioid prescribing after surgery.