Anesthesia and analgesia
-
Anesthesia and analgesia · Oct 2013
The Association of Preoperative Statin Use and Acute Kidney Injury After Noncardiac Surgery.
Our objective was to examine the association between preoperative statin therapy and the incidence of postoperative acute kidney injury (AKI) in patients undergoing elective noncardiac surgery. ⋯ Our data did not support the hypothesis that preoperative statin therapy in doses routinely used to treat hypercholesterolemia is associated with a change in the incidence of AKI, postoperative dialysis, or hospital mortality in patients undergoing noncardiac surgery.
-
Anesthesia and analgesia · Oct 2013
Simulation of the Kinetics of Neuromuscular Block: Implications for Speed of Onset.
The onset time for paralysis varies 3-fold among nondepolarizing muscle relaxants. Possible explanations include: (a) pharmacokinetic differences among drugs and (b) buffering of drug molecules by acetylcholine receptors as they diffuse into the neuromuscular junction. Although some pharmacokinetic models consider buffered diffusion, these models do not account for either the high density of receptors or synapse geometry. Here, I used computer simulations to calculate the kinetics of buffered diffusion. The goal was to determine the conditions under which buffered diffusion could account for differences in onset time among nondepolarizing muscle relaxants. ⋯ Monte Carlo simulation provides a biophysically appropriate way to incorporate buffered diffusion into pharmacokinetic modeling. The simulations indicated that buffered diffusion could account for differences in onset time among drugs. However, a better understanding of the geometry of the human neuromuscular junction is needed before the magnitude of the effect of buffered diffusion can be quantified.