Current opinion in anaesthesiology
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Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) has presented numerous challenges to healthcare systems worldwide. The virus is highly contagious and infectious since transmission can occur via multiple routes. General measures to prevent viral transmission to patients and healthcare personnel, such as a reduction in clinical load and routine testing, must be coupled with multiple additional safety measures in perioperative services. ⋯ The present review addresses both practical and recommended measures for performing regional anesthesia in the pandemic, to ensure patient and staff safety, and equipment protection. Further research and evidence-based guidelines are necessary to devise an established standard of care during the current COVID-19 and possible future pandemics.
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Curr Opin Anaesthesiol · Oct 2021
ReviewAirway management in the adult patient with an unstable cervical spine.
The ideal airway management of patients with unstable spinal injury presents a perennial challenge for anaesthesiologists. With competing interests, potentially catastrophic complications, and a scarcity of evidence to support common practices, it is an area rich with dogma and devoid of data. This review seeks to highlight recent evidence that improves our assurance that what we do to manage the airway in the unstable cervical spine is supported by data. ⋯ Video laryngoscopy may replace direct laryngoscopy as the default technique for endotracheal intubation in patients with suspected or confirmed spinal instability. Immobilisation of the unstable cervical spine, manually or with rigid cervical collars, is increasingly controversial. It may be that hard collars are used in specific circumstances, rather than as universal precaution in the future.There are no recent data of significantly high quality to warrant wholesale changes to recommended airway management practice and in the absence of new information, limiting movement (in the suspected or confirmed unstable cervical spine) remains the mainstay of clinical practice advice.