The Medical clinics of North America
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Patients presenting in an immunocompromised state merit special consideration when being evaluated for fitness to undergo surgery. A variety of immunodeficient conditions and their respective therapies, including human immunodeficiency virus, cancer, and transplantation, exert numerous systemic effects that may lead to multiorgan dysfunction. Understanding the potential impact of these disease manifestations, and their proper evaluation, is essential in achieving optimal perioperative outcomes for these patients.
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Med. Clin. North Am. · Nov 2013
ReviewPatients with pacemaker or implantable cardioverter-defibrillator.
The preparation of patients with a cardiac implantable electronic device (CIED) for the perioperative period necessitates familiarity with recommendations from the American Society of Anesthesiologists and Heart Rhythm Society. Even clinicians who are not CIED experts should understand the indications for implantation, as well as the basic functions, operations, and limitations of these devices. Before any scheduled procedure, proper CIED function should be verified and a specific CIED prescription obtained. Acquiring the requisite knowledge base and developing the systems to competently manage the CIED patient ensures safe and efficient perioperative care.
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One of the most important factors affecting outcome and recovery from surgical trauma is preoperative nutritional status. Research in perioperative nutritional support has suffered from a lack of consensus as to the definition of malnutrition, no recognition of which nutrients are important to surgical healing, and a paucity of well-designed studies. In the past decade, there has been some activity to address this situation, recognizing the importance of nutrition as a therapy before surgery, after surgery, and possibly even during surgery.
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Preoperative evaluation of patients with chronic pain is important because it may lead to multidisciplinary preoperative treatment of patients' pain and a multimodal analgesia plan for effective pain control. Preoperative multidisciplinary management of chronic pain and comorbid conditions, such as depression, anxiety, deconditioning, and opioid tolerance, can improve patient satisfaction and surgical recovery. Multimodal analgesia using pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic strategies shifts the burden of analgesia away from simply increasing opioid dosing. In more complicated chronic pain patients, multidisciplinary treatment, including pain psychology, physical therapy, judicious medication management, and minimally invasive interventions by pain specialists, can improve patients' satisfaction and surgical outcome.
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Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a major public health problem worldwide. Roughly 1 in 10 adult Americans has CKD. ⋯ Therefore, identifying risk factors and implementing risk mitigation strategies to prevent further deterioration of renal function during the perioperative period is of paramount importance. This article reviews patient risk stratification, preoperative evaluation and management, and perioperative interventions for renal protection.