British journal of anaesthesia
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Remifentanil may be an alternative to conventional opioids for minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass surgery because of its extremely short duration of action. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of remifentanil on myocardial blood flow, metabolism and systemic haemodynamic variables in patients with coronary artery disease. After approval by the local ethics committee, 12 male patients were investigated before elective coronary artery bypass grafting. ⋯ In contrast to high-dose remifentanil anaesthesia, systemic vascular resistance index (-14%) during remifentanil/propofol anaesthesia was significantly lower than that in the awake patient. Other haemodynamic variables, and myocardial blood flow and MVO2, did not significantly differ from the high-dose remifentanil period. In conclusion, high-dose remifentanil reduces SVI, heart rate, MAP, myocardial blood flow and MVO2 and its effects do not differ from those of remifentanil/propofol anaesthesia.
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We examined the placement of anaesthetists in our department over a 2 yr period. Data were collected from an in-theatre system to provide details of caseload and supervision for 34,856 operations. There was wide variation between anaesthetic sub-specialties with overall supervision levels of 35% of cases for senior house officers (SHOs) and 32% for specialist registrars (SpRs). ⋯ We then examined individual logbooks in order to validate our data, and departmental rotas to put these data into perspective with previous attempts to quantify trainee supervision. Supervision data derived from the rota allocations showed that 86% of SHO lists and 62% of SpR lists were scheduled to be supervised. This study has described our training activity and facilitated departmental changes, as well as highlighting the need for great care in interpreting trainee supervision data acquired from different sources, particularly when comparisons are being made.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Effects of isoflurane, sevoflurane and propofol anaesthesia on jugular venous oxygen saturation in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery.
We investigated the effect of sevoflurane, isoflurane and propofol on jugular venous bulb oxygen saturation (SjO2) in 21 patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) during and after normothermic cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). Patients received a standardized anaesthetic consisting of fentanyl, midazolam and were then randomly allocated to receive either isoflurane, sevoflurane or propofol for maintenance. ⋯ Furthermore, SjO2 values were significantly higher during CPB in the isoflurane group (P = 0.0081) and significantly lower 6 h after CPB in the sevoflurane group (P = 0.0447) when compared to the propofol group. We conclude that jugular venous desaturation during and after normothermic CPB is more likely during propofol anaesthesia.