British journal of anaesthesia
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There is still insufficient evidence to link particular anaesthetic or analgesic interventions with tumour recurrence following cancer surgery.
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Review
Optimising organ perfusion in the high-risk surgical patient and ICU patient: a narrative review.
Maintenance or prompt restoration of an oxygen supply sufficient to facilitate adequate cellular metabolism is fundamental in maintaining organ function. This is particularly relevant when metabolic needs change markedly, for example in response to major surgery or critical illness. The consequences of inadequate tissue oxygenation include wound and anastomotic breakdown, organ dysfunction, and death. ⋯ Advances in oxygen sensing technology will facilitate monitoring in various organ beds and allow more precise titration of therapies to physiologically relevant endpoints. Clinical trials will be needed to evaluate any impact on outcomes, however accurate on-line monitoring of the adequacy of tissue oxygenation offers the promise of a paradigm shift in resuscitation and perioperative practice. This narrative review examines current evidence for goal-directed therapy in the optimisation of organ perfusion in high-risk surgical and critically ill patients, and offers arguments to support the potential utility of tissue oxygen monitoring.
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Over the past decade, the mechanisms underlying placebo effects have begun to be identified. At the same time, the placebo response appears to have increased in pharmacological trials and marked placebo effects are found in neurostimulation and surgical trials, thereby posing the question whether non-pharmacological interventions should be placebo-controlled to a greater extent. In this narrative review we discuss how the knowledge of placebo mechanisms may help to improve placebo control in pharmacological and non-pharmacological trials. ⋯ Finally, we discuss how systematic investigations into placebo mechanisms across various pain conditions and types of treatment are needed in order to 'personalise' the placebo control to the specific pathophysiology and interventions, which may ultimately lead to identification of more effective treatment for pain patients. In conclusion this review shows that it is important to understand how patients' perception and expectations influence the efficacy of active and placebo treatments in order to improve the test of new treatments. Importantly, this applies not only to assessment of drug efficacy but also to non-pharmacological trials on surgeries and stimulation procedures.
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Observational Study
Surgical pleth index: prospective validation of the score to predict moderate-to-severe postoperative pain.
Reported outcome benefits after surgical pleth index (SPI, GE Healthcare, Helsinki, Finland) guided anaesthesia are conflicting. One potential explanation may be the lack of evidence for the selection of meaningful SPI target values. A recently published trial found an SPI cut-off of 30 as a 'best-fit' to predict moderate-to-severe acute postoperative pain. This prospective trial was designed to validate this target and to investigate the influence of patient age on SPI in this context. ⋯ ACTRN12617001475336.