Regional anesthesia and pain medicine
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · May 2000
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical TrialEffect of epidural epinephrine infusion with bupivacaine on labor pain and mother-fetus outcome in humans.
Epinephrine is used with local anesthetics to prolong the duration of epidural analgesia and decrease the peak plasma concentrations of local anesthetics. In the practice of obstetric anesthesia, the utero-placental and fetal effects of epinephrine are controversial issues. We designed a prospective, randomized, and double-blind study to examine the effects of epinephrine infusion on the quality of analgesia and uterine or umbilical blood flows with Doppler ultrasound, as well as the duration of the first or the second stage of labor, and fetal outcome. ⋯ A low-dose epidural infusion of epinephrine decreased anesthetic requirements.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · May 2000
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical TrialEffects of immediately initiating an epidural infusion in the combined spinal and epidural technique in nulliparous parturients.
Intrathecal fentanyl with bupivacaine provides rapid labor analgesia of limited duration. We investigated the effect of initiating an epidural infusion of 0.1% ropivacaine with fentanyl 2 microg/mL and epinephrine 1:400,000 (REF) on the duration of analgesia and incidence of side effects after intrathecal injection in the combined spinal and epidural technique. ⋯ Initiating an infusion of REF prolongs the duration of analgesia, but also results in a greater decrease in blood pressure. Despite this effect on blood pressure, there was no difference in ephedrine use.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · May 2000
Case ReportsDetermining epidural catheter location using nerve stimulation with radiological confirmation.
The use of epidural stimulation to confirm epidural catheter placement has been shown. This case report describes the benefits and problems of using the epidural stimulation test to confirm epidural catheter placement and provides supporting evidence for these observations using radiological imaging. ⋯ This report illustrates some of the potential benefits and problems of using the nerve stimulation test to confirm epidural catheter placement, with radiological verification.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · May 2000
Clinical TrialThe minimum effective concentration of opioids: a revisitation with patient controlled analgesia fentanyl.
Whether patients titrate themselves to an individualized blood or plasma opioid concentration (the so-called minimum effective concentration or [MEC]) has been debated extensively. Nevertheless, there is consistent opinion that during patient controlled analgesia (PCA) patients balance acceptable pain relief against unacceptable side effects. This study sought to characterize fentanyl used by PCA with respect to MEC and factors influencing PCA use. ⋯ This study found evidence to support the concepts of an individual MEC and a therapeutic window of fentanyl used with PCA.