Annales françaises d'anesthèsie et de rèanimation
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Damage control is a strategy of care for bleeding trauma patients, involving minimal rescue surgery associated to perioperative resuscitation. The purpose of this review is to draw up a statement on current knowledge available on damage control. ⋯ Historical damage control surgery, that consist of abbreviated laparotomy with second-look after resuscitation, is now included in a wider concept called "damage control resuscitation", addressing the lethal triad (coagulopathy, hypothermia and acidosis) at an early phase. Care is focused on coagulopathy prevention. Early resuscitation, or damage control ground zero, has been improved: aggressive management of hypothermia, bleeding control techniques, permissive hypotension concept and early use of vasopressors. Transfusion practices also have evolved: early platelets and coagulation factors administration, use of hemostatic agents like recombinant FVIIa, whole blood transfusion, denote the damage control hematology. Progress in surgical practices and development of arteriographic techniques lead to wider indications of damage control strategy.
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Reviewing problems related to the airway management in obstetrics, taking into account the recent evolutions of the anaesthetic practices in obstetrics. ⋯ Airway management in obstetrics remains a true challenge for various reasons. The physiological and anatomical modifications related to pregnancy are responsible for a faster hypoxemia, a reduction of the diameter of the pharyngolaryngal tract, as well as an increase of the risk of inhalation of gastric contents after 16 weeks of amenorrhea. The emergency or extreme emergency context and the presence of diseases like obesity or preeclampsia raise the risks of difficulties with airway management. The logical evolution of the practices, with the considerable rise of the regional anesthesia/analgesia limits the training and the maintenance of competences for intratracheal intubation in obstetrics. The training per simulation appears particularly interesting on the subject and this approach needs to be developed. The literature indicates that the incidence of difficult intubation is of one per 30. The impossible intubation is one per 280 in obstetrics, eight times greater than in the general population. No criterion of difficult intubation is sufficiently predictive alone. In obstetrics as in other contexts, the association of several criteria will permit to anticipate a difficult intubation. There is a worsening of the Mallampati during the pregnancy and during labour. To limit the risk of a difficult management of the airway in obstetrics, it will be paramount and capital, in addition to give priority to the regional anaesthesia/analgesia each time possible, to perform a careful and repeated evaluation of the predictive criteria of difficult intubation or ventilation. The inhalation of gastric fluid will systematically be prevented. The adapted material and algorithms for difficult intubation must be available in the labour wards. In case of a difficult intubation during an emergency caesarean section, the SFAR algorithms must be applied. In case of a "cannot intubate can ventilate situation", the possibility of carrying on the Caesarean maintaining the Sellick manoeuvre should be considered. The place of the laryngoscopy assisted by videolaryngoscope in this context clearly remains to be defined. Even if in the literature some cases of successful intubation through these devices suggest an interest, there is a clear deviance between the guidelines and the practices concerning general anaesthesia performed at the end of the labour. Indeed they should be systematically performed with rapid sequence induction and tracheal intubation. A reflexion on this theme is necessary in order to grant the practices to the recommendations.
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Ann Fr Anesth Reanim · Sep 2011
Review[Surgery and invasive procedures in patients on long-term treatment with oral direct thrombin or factor Xa inhibitors].
Direct oral anticoagulants (DOAs), inhibitors of factor IIa or Xa, are expected to replace vitamin K antagonists in most of their indications. It is likely that patients on long-term treatment with DOAs will be exposed to elective or emergency surgery or invasive procedures. Due to the present lack of experience in such conditions, we cannot make recommendations, but only propose perioperative management for optimal safety as regards the risk of bleeding and thrombosis. ⋯ The treatment should be resumed only when the risk of bleeding has been controlled. In patients with a high risk of thrombosis (e.g. those in atrial fibrillation with an antecedent of stroke), bridging with heparin (low molecular weight, or unfractionated if the former is contraindicated) is proposed. In emergency, the procedure should be postponed for as long as possible (minimum 1-2 half-lives) and non-specific anti-haemorrhagic agents, such as recombinant human activated factor VIIa, or prothrombin concentrates, should not be given for prophylactic reversal, due to their uncertain benefit-risk.
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Ann Fr Anesth Reanim · Sep 2011
Case Reports[Anaesthesia for caesarean section in a pregnant woman with cor triatriatum].
A 41-year-old woman suffering from a left cor triatrium, pregnant for the first time, was hospitalized for a caesarean section in the context of a pulmonary arterial hypertension with severe anaemia. The anaesthetic strategy which was decided on involved setting up a haemodynamic monitoring prior to induction of a general anaesthetia with etomidate, remifentanil and succinylcholine and maintained with propofol, sufentanil and cisatracurium. ⋯ The improvement of the arterial pulmonary hypertension immediately after coming out of the operating theatre allowed the patient to be briefly monitored in the intensive care unit and to be allowed home on the 10th day following the operation. The patient's cardiopathy was corrected in the 5th month after the birth.
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Ann Fr Anesth Reanim · Sep 2011
[Use of neuromuscular blocking agents in prehospital medicine: practice survey in Emergency Mobile Services of the South-East of France].
To evaluate the use of neuromuscular blocking agents (NMBA) in the French adult Prehospital Emergency Medical Services (PEMS). ⋯ This survey highlights the very frequent use of succinylcholine for rapid sequence induction and low use of nondepolarizing NMBA for selected indications. A training endeavor could be undertaken to improve the use of these anesthetic drugs by prehospital physicians.