Anaesthesia
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Ultrasound guidance is rapidly becoming the gold standard for regional anaesthesia. There is an ever growing weight of evidence, matched with improving technology, to show that the use of ultrasound has significant benefits over conventional techniques, such as nerve stimulation and loss of resistance. ⋯ The Achilles' heel of ultrasound-guided regional anaesthesia is that anaesthetists are far more familiar with providing general anaesthesia, which in most cases requires skills that are achieved faster and more reliably. To this ends we go on to provide practical advice on ultrasound-guided techniques and the introduction of ultrasound into a department.
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Wound infiltration with local anaesthetics is a simple, effective and inexpensive means of providing good analgesia for a variety of surgical procedures without any major side-effects. In particular, local anaesthetic toxicity, wound infection and healing do not appear to be major considerations. The purpose of this review is to outline the existing literature on a procedure-specific basis and to encourage a more widespread acceptance of the technique, ensuring that all layers are infiltrated in a controlled and meticulous manner.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Modification of Tp-e and QTc intervals during caesarean section under spinal anaesthesia.
There are no guidelines for the anaesthetic management of caesarean section in women with long QT syndrome; the description of myocardial ventricular repolarisation in healthy women during caesarean delivery could be a first step. The aim of this study was to describe modification of the QT interval, corrected for heart rate, and the interval between the peak and the end of the T-wave (Tpeak-Tend interval) during caesarean section under spinal anaesthesia. We studied 40 patients scheduled for caesarean section under spinal anaesthesia. ⋯ Corrected QT and Tpeak-Tend intervals were unchanged from pre-operative values after induction of spinal anaesthesia, but increased significantly after oxytocin injection. The choice of vasopressor did not affect the Tpeak-Tend interval. The risk-benefit balance of oxytocin bolus during caesarean delivery should be discussed with women with a history of long QT syndrome.