Anesthesia and analgesia
-
Anesthesia and analgesia · Nov 2011
Brief report: The sensitivity of motor responses for detecting catheter-nerve contact during ultrasound-guided femoral nerve blocks with stimulating catheters.
We determined the sensitivity of motor responses evoked by stimulating catheters in determining catheter-nerve contact using ultrasonography as reference. ⋯ The absence of muscle responses at a stimulating current≤0.5 mA does not necessarily indicate the absence of catheter-nerve contact.
-
Anesthesia and analgesia · Nov 2011
ReviewReview article: Neurotoxicity of anesthetic drugs in the developing brain.
Anesthesia kills neurons in the brain of infantile animals, including primates, and causes permanent and progressive neurocognitive decline. The anesthesia community and regulatory authorities alike are concerned that is also true in humans. In this review, I summarize what we currently know about the risks of pediatric anesthesia to long-term cognitive function. ⋯ This review discusses early results of comparative animal studies of anesthetic neurotoxicity. Until we know if and how pediatric anesthesia affects cognition in humans, a change in anesthetic practice would be premature, not guided by evidence of better alternatives, and therefore potentially dangerous. The SmartTots initiative jointly supported by the International Anesthesia Research Society and the Food and Drug Administration aims to fund research designed to shed light on these issues that are of high priority to the anesthesia community and the public alike and therefore deserves the full support of these interest groups.
-
Anesthesia and analgesia · Nov 2011
ReviewStatistical grand rounds: Importance of appropriately modeling procedure and duration in logistic regression studies of perioperative morbidity and mortality.
Multiple logistic regression studies frequently are performed with duration (e.g., operative time) included as an independent variable. We use narrative review of the statistical literature to highlight that when the association between duration and outcome is presumptively significant, the procedure itself (e.g., video-assisted thoracoscopic lobectomy or thoracotomy lobectomy) needs to be tested for inclusion in the logistic regression. ⋯ Only the scheduled duration is known when a patient would be randomized in a trial of preoperative or intraoperative intervention and/or meets with the surgeon and anesthesiologist preoperatively. By reviewing the literature about logistic regression and about predicting case duration, we show that the use of actual instead of scheduled duration can result in biased logistic regression results.