British journal of anaesthesia
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The cuffed pharyngeal tube (CPT) is a hand-made device designed to maintain upper airway patency during anaesthesia. Two cases of difficult intubation managed successfully using the new device are described. Insertion was easily achieved at the first attempt in each case. The incisor-tip distance of the CPT is 14 cm and the cuff is inflated with 60 ml of air in an average adult.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Anaesthesia with propofol decreases FMLP-induced neutrophil respiratory burst but not phagocytosis compared with isoflurane.
Propofol has been reported to produce a dose-dependent inhibition of phagocytosis and superoxide anion production during the respiratory burst (RB) of polymorphonuclear cells (PMNs) in vitro. In this randomized, blinded study, these two parameters were compared during propofol or isoflurane anaesthesia in patients undergoing elective interventional embolization of cerebral arterio-venous malformations. Anaesthesia was performed with continuous intravenous propofol 6-8 mg kg-1 h-1 (n = 15) or isoflurane 0.8-1.0% end tidal (n = 15). ⋯ The percentage of PMN with RB activity following TNF-alpha/FMLP stimulation was significantly reduced after 2 h (80.9% (24.2%); P < 0.05) and 4 h (53.7% (27.3); P < 0.05) of anaesthesia with propofol compared with the values before induction. This effect of propofol anaesthesia was significantly different from the effect of isoflurane anaesthesia. In contrast to published in vitro results, 4 h of anaesthesia with propofol did not reduce the phagocytotic capacity of human blood PMN more than isoflurane anaesthesia.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Motor block during patient-controlled epidural analgesia with ropivacaine or ropivacaine/fentanyl after intrathecal bupivacaine for caesarean section.
We compared patient-controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA) with ropivacaine alone or combined with fentanyl in terms of analgesic efficacy, motor weakness and side-effects in patients who had received spinal anaesthesia for elective Caesarean section. ASA I patients received combined spinal-epidural anaesthesia and were randomly assigned, in a double-blind study, into two groups after operation: group R (n = 23) received PCEA ropivacaine 0.1%, bolus 5 mg, lock-out 15 min, 3 mg h-1 background infusion, and group RF (n = 24) received PCEA 0.1% ropivacaine/fentanyl 2 micrograms ml-1 at identical settings. Pain and satisfaction on a 100 mm visual analogue scale (VAS) and side-effects were noted. ⋯ Analgesic consumption was less in RF (P = 0.041), but there was no difference in time to first request for supplementary analgesia. Patient satisfaction with postoperative analgesia (mean (SD)) was higher in RF (79 (23) vs 57 (29) mm, P = 0.045). Caution should be exercised using ropivacaine PCEA after spinal bupivacaine for Caesarean section, because its reputed motor-sparing property may be unreliable.