Anaesthesia
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Multicenter Study
Transfusion in critical care - a UK regional audit of current practice.
A consistent message within critical care publications has been that a restrictive transfusion strategy is non-inferior, and possibly superior, to a liberal strategy for stable, non-bleeding critically ill patients. Translation into clinical practice has, however, been slow. Here, we describe the degree of adherence to UK best practice guidelines in a regional network of nine intensive care units within Wessex. ⋯ The reason why recommendations on transfusion triggers have not translated into clinical practice is unclear. With a clear national drive to decrease usage of blood products and clear evidence that a threshold of 70 g.l-1 is non-inferior, it is surprising that a scarce and potentially dangerous resource is still being overused within critical care. Simple solutions such as electronic patient records that force pause for thought before blood transfusion, or prescriptions that only allow administration of a single unit in non-emergency circumstances may help to reduce the incidence of unnecessary blood transfusions.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
A randomised double-blind trial of phenylephrine and metaraminol infusions for prevention of hypotension during spinal and combined spinal-epidural anaesthesia for elective caesarean section.
Metaraminol infusion for hypotension prevention during spinal anaesthesia for Caesarean section is non-inferior to phenylephrine infusion.
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Review
The application of three-dimensional printing technology in anaesthesia: a systematic review.
Three-dimensional printing has rapidly become an easily accessible, innovative and versatile technology, with a vast range of applications across a wide range of industries. There has been a recent emergence in the scientific literature relating to its potential application across a multitude of fields within medicine and surgery; however, its use within anaesthesia has yet to be formally explored. ⋯ We identified eight relevant articles. Due to the paucity of studies, we also completed a narrative review of the applications of three-dimensional printing pertinent to anaesthetic practice that our department are currently exploring, and suggest potential future uses for this technology relevant to our speciality.
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The primary goal of this study was to determine the median effective dose (ED50 ) of spinal chloroprocaine for labour analgesia. Thirty-eight parturients requesting neuraxial analgesia were enrolled. ⋯ Effective analgesia was defined as a score ≤ 10 mm within 15 min on a 100-mm visual analogue pain scale. Using the isotonic regression estimator method, the ED50 of chloroprocaine for the spinal component of a combined spinal-epidural for labour was calculated to be median (95%CI) 12.0 (9.3-17.0) mg.