Anesthesia and analgesia
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Oct 2013
ReviewDecision Support for Hemodynamic Management: From Graphical Displays to Closed Loop Systems.
The way hemodynamic therapies are delivered today in anesthesia and critical care is suboptimal. Hemodynamic variables are not always understood correctly and used properly. The adoption of hemodynamic goal-directed strategies, known to be clinically useful, is poor. ⋯ However, most therapeutic decisions cannot be based on a limited number of output variables. Therefore, one should focus on the development of systems designed to relieve clinicians from very simple and repetitive tasks. Whether intraoperative goal-directed fluid therapy may be one of these tasks remains to be evaluated.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Oct 2013
ReviewA Matter of Life or Limb? A Review of Traumatic Injury Patterns and Anesthesia Techniques for Disaster Relief After Major Earthquakes.
All modalities of anesthetic care, including conscious sedation, general, and regional anesthesia, have been used to manage earthquake survivors who require urgent surgical intervention during the acute phase of medical relief. Consequently, we felt that a review of epidemiologic data from major earthquakes in the context of urgent intraoperative management was warranted to optimize anesthesia disaster preparedness for future medical relief operations. The primary outcome measure of this study was to identify the predominant preoperative injury pattern (anatomic location and pathology) of survivors presenting for surgical care immediately after major earthquakes during the acute phase of medical relief (0-15 days after disaster). The injury pattern is of significant relevance because it closely relates to the anesthetic techniques available for patient management. We discuss our findings in the context of evidence-based strategies for anesthetic management during the acute phase of medical relief after major earthquakes and the associated obstacles of devastated medical infrastructure. ⋯ Based on this analysis, early disaster surgical intervention will focus on surviving patients with limb injury. All anesthetic techniques have been safely used for medical relief. While regional anesthesia may be an intuitive choice based on these findings, in the context of collapsed medical infrastructure, provider experience may dictate the available anesthetic techniques for earthquake survivors requiring urgent surgery.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Oct 2013
ReviewNoninvasive Hemoglobin Monitoring: How Accurate Is Enough?
Evaluating the accuracy of medical devices has traditionally been a blend of statistical analyses, at times without contextualizing the clinical application. There have been a number of recent publications on the accuracy of a continuous noninvasive hemoglobin measurement device, the Masimo Radical-7 Pulse Co-oximeter, focusing on the traditional statistical metrics of bias and precision. In this review, which contains material presented at the Innovations and Applications of Monitoring Perfusion, Oxygenation, and Ventilation (IAMPOV) Symposium at Yale University in 2012, we critically investigated these metrics as applied to the new technology, exploring what is required of a noninvasive hemoglobin monitor and whether the conventional statistics adequately answer our questions about clinical accuracy. ⋯ This hemoglobin error grid can be used to evaluate the required clinical accuracy (±g/dL) of a hemoglobin measurement device to provide more conclusive evidence on whether to transfuse an individual patient. The important decision to transfuse a patient usually requires both an accurate hemoglobin measurement and a physiologic reason to elect transfusion. It is our opinion that the published accuracy data of the Masimo Radical-7 is not good enough to make the transfusion decision.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Oct 2013
ReviewReduction of Myocardial Infarct Size with Ischemic "Conditioning": Physiologic and Technical Considerations.
A wealth of evidence has revealed that the heart can be "conditioned" and rendered less vulnerable to ischemia-reperfusion injury via the upregulation of endogenous protective signaling pathways. Three distinct conditioning strategies have been identified: (1) preconditioning, the phenomenon where brief episodes of myocardial ischemia (too brief to cause cardiomyocyte death) limit necrosis caused by a subsequent sustained ischemic insult; (2) postconditioning, the concept that relief of myocardial ischemia in a staged or stuttered manner attenuates lethal ischemia-reperfusion injury; and (3) remote conditioning, or upregulation of a cardioprotective phenotype initiated by ischemia in a remote organ or tissue and "transported" to the heart. ⋯ There is, however, a potentially important caveat to the clinical translation of myocardial conditioning: emerging data suggest that the efficacy of ischemic conditioning is compromised in aging, diabetic, and hypertensive cohorts, the specific populations in which myocardial protection is most relevant. Successful clinical application of myocardial conditioning will therefore require an understanding of the potential confounding consequences of these comorbidities on the "conditioned" phenotype.
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Much more than a telephone, today's mobile device has become an integral part of the way we interface with the world. Mobile devices have the computing capability, display, and battery power to become powerful medical devices that measure vital signs and provide intelligent interpretation or immediate transmission of information. ⋯ This readily available computing power will also extend the utility of vital signs monitoring to new clinical indications, especially with the use of additional processing and integration of information. This review will focus on the universal promotion of pulse oximetry and advanced processing of plethysmography to assess variables such as respiratory rate, capillary refill time, and fluid responsiveness, and how these measurements may assist with perioperative monitoring, diagnosis, and management of pneumonia in children and preeclampsia in pregnancy when combined with mobile devices.