Journal of cardiothoracic and vascular anesthesia
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J. Cardiothorac. Vasc. Anesth. · Dec 2020
ReviewAnesthesia for Patients Undergoing Anesthesia for Elective Thoracic Surgery During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Consensus Statement From the Israeli Society of Anesthesiologists.
Anesthesia for thoracic surgery requires specialist intervention to provide adequate operating conditions and one-lung ventilation. The pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome-associated coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is transmitted by aerosol and droplet spread. Because of its virulence, there is a risk of transmission to healthcare workers if appropriate preventive measures are not taken. ⋯ For these reasons, standard practice is to assume all patients are COVID-19 positive regardless of swab results. Here, the authors present the recommendations produced by the Israeli Society of Anesthesiologists for use in thoracic anesthesia for elective surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic for both the general population and COVID-19-confirmed patients. The objective of these recommendations is to make changes to some routine techniques in thoracic anesthesia to augment patients' and the medical staff's safety.
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J. Cardiothorac. Vasc. Anesth. · Dec 2020
ReviewBiased Agonism: The Future (and Present) of Inotropic Support.
Biased agonism, which is the concept that different ligands activate different downstream signalling partners in different ratios to cause different functional effects, is yet to gain appropriate appreciation in the field of inotropic pharmacology. Biased agonism has already proven to be a clinically translatable technology in analgesic pharmacology, but this development is yet to be translated into inotropes. A better appreciation of bias in clinically used inotropes and a focus on bias when developing novel inotropes has the potential to lead to more targeted, personalized, and cleaner inotropes.