Paediatric anaesthesia
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Paediatric anaesthesia · Nov 2016
Developing an objective method for analyzing vital signs changes in neonates during general anesthesia.
Commonly used general anesthetics are considered to be neurotoxic to the developing rodent brain, leading to poor long-term outcome. However, it is unclear whether these rodent studies can be extrapolated to the human neonate. Given that anesthesia for urgent neonatal surgery cannot be avoided, it is vitally important to assess other factors that may impact neurological outcome following anesthesia and surgery. ⋯ An objective method of comparing cases has been created with a method to automatically identify neonatal vital sign deviations. With further validation the method has the potential to be a powerful tool to drive future quality improvement projects in neonatal anesthesia.
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Paediatric anaesthesia · Nov 2016
Comparative Study Observational StudyMeasuring cardiac output in children undergoing cardiac catheterization: comparison between the Fick method and PRAM (pressure recording analytical method).
Pressure recording analytical method (PRAM) is a novel, arterial pulse contour method for measuring cardiac output (CO). Validation studies of PRAM in children are few, and have shown contradictory results. The aim of the study was to compare the MostCare® -PRAM vs the Fick method of cardiac output estimation (reference method). ⋯ In pediatric patients undergoing diagnostic right and left heart catheterization, the MostCare® -PRAM was shown to estimate CI with a good level of agreement with the Fick method measurements.
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Paediatric anaesthesia · Nov 2016
Blood pressure and heart rates in neonates and preschool children: an analysis from 10 years of electronic recording.
An acceptable systolic or mean arterial blood pressure for children 0-6 years during anesthesia is unknown. Accepted blood pressures reported in standard charts for healthy awake children may not apply to those undergoing anesthesia. ⋯ Heart rate while under anesthesia appears a poor indicator for blood pressure changes. Recorded blood pressures in this current study, measured immediately before induction, were consistent with those in the literature. A mean MAP decrease of 28.6% was typical in those infants 0-10 weeks of age.