Current opinion in anaesthesiology
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Curr Opin Anaesthesiol · Jun 2017
ReviewClinical 'pearls' of maternal critical care Part 2: sickle-cell disease in pregnancy.
The current review outlines the challenges in managing pregnant women with sickle-cell anemia, who are at risk of becoming critically ill during pregnancy. ⋯ This is a challenging cohort of pregnant patients who have a significantly increased morbidity and mortality. This review aims to aid management of these patients on the labor ward for both obstetric anesthetists and intensivists.
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This review will deliberate on contemporary concepts regarding the frailty syndrome and its association with the perioperative period. Frailty syndrome and its relevance to organ systems, scoring tools and intervention measures will be discussed in detail. ⋯ Preoperative frailty is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Recently, frailty assessment tools have been developed and show good ability to predict postoperative adverse events. These tools might become a preoperative routine, as they set the ground for patient's selection, guide perioperative interventions for the frail elderly population and thus may influence patient's outcome.
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Curr Opin Anaesthesiol · Jun 2017
ReviewWorking toward quality in obstetric anesthesia: a business approach.
Physicians are increasingly required to demonstrate that they provide quality care. How does one define quality? A significant body of literature in industries outside of health care provides guidance on how to define appropriate metrics, create teams to troubleshoot problem areas, and sustain those improvements. ⋯ The review will discuss the process for creating an effective quality program for an obstetric anesthesia division. Sustainable improvements in delivered care need to be based on an evaluation of service line needs, defining appropriate metrics, understanding current process flows, changing and measuring those processes, and developing mechanisms to ensure the new processes are maintained.
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Curr Opin Anaesthesiol · Jun 2017
ReviewCodeine and opioid metabolism: implications and alternatives for pediatric pain management.
Use of perioperative opioids for surgical pain management of children presents clinical challenges because of concerns of serious adverse effects including life-threatening respiratory depression. This is especially true for children with history of obstructive sleep apnea. This review will explore current knowledge of clinically relevant factors and genetic polymorphisms that affect opioid metabolism and postoperative outcomes in children. ⋯ Although routine preoperative genotyping to identify children at risk and personalized opioid use for pediatric perioperative pain management is still a distant reality, current known implications of CYP2D6 pharmacogenetics on codeine use shows that pharmacogenetics has the potential to guide anesthesia providers on perioperative opioid selection and dosing to maximize efficacy and safety.
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The aim of this review is to examine data relating to perioperative management of the patient with neuromuscular disorders RECENT FINDINGS: Patients with pre-existing neuromuscular disorders are at risk for a number of postoperative complications that are related to anesthetic drugs that are administered intraoperatively. Careful preoperative assessment is necessary to reduce morbidity and mortality. In particular, the risk of postoperative respiratory failure and need for long-term ventilation should be reviewed with patients. The use of succinylcholine should be avoided in muscular dystrophies, motor neuron diseases, and intrinsic muscle disease due to a risk of malignant hyperthermia, hyperkalemia, rhabdomyolysis, and cardiac arrest. The use of quantitative neuromuscular monitoring should be strongly considered whenever nondepolarizing neuromuscular blocking agents are administered. A number of case series and reports have been recently published demonstrating that sugammadex can be safely used in patients with neuromuscular disease; the risk of residual neuromuscular is nearly eliminated when this agent is administered intraoperatively. ⋯ Careful assessment and management of patients with underlying neuromuscular diseases is required to reduce postoperative complications. This article reviews the anesthetic implications of patients undergoing surgery with neuromuscular disorder.