Regional anesthesia and pain medicine
-
Reg Anesth Pain Med · Jul 2002
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical TrialNefopam and tramadol for the prevention of shivering during neuraxial anesthesia.
In patients undergoing neuraxial anesthesia, heat loss and core-to-peripheral redistribution of body heat causes the core temperature to decrease. The shivering threshold is therefore reached soon, and more shivering is required to prevent further hypothermia. Because shivering has deleterious metabolic and cardiovascular effects, it should ideally be prevented by pharmacologic or other means. We evaluated the usefulness of intravenous (IV) nefopam and tramadol in preventing and reducing the severity of shivering in patients undergoing neuraxial anesthesia for orthopedic surgery. ⋯ As a pharmacologic means of preventing shivering in patients undergoing neuraxial anesthesia, nefopam may hold the greatest promise.
-
Reg Anesth Pain Med · Jul 2002
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical TrialEpinephrine is not a useful addition to intrathecal fentanyl or fentanyl-bupivacaine for labor analgesia.
Intrathecal fentanyl provides effective labor analgesia for a limited time with frequent side effects. We evaluated the effects of adding epinephrine to intrathecal fentanyl with and without bupivacaine. ⋯ These results suggest that intrathecal epinephrine does not prolong the duration of fentanyl or fentanyl with bupivacaine for labor analgesia in nulliparous parturients. Additionally, intrathecal epinephrine did not decrease the incidence of side effects and therefore cannot be recommended.
-
Reg Anesth Pain Med · Jul 2002
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical TrialPatient-controlled thoracic epidural infusion with ropivacaine 0.375% provides comparable pain relief as bupivacaine 0.125% plus sufentanil after major abdominal gynecologic tumor surgery.
We tested the hypothesis that an opioid-free local anesthetic alone is able to provide comparable analgesia to the opioid supplemented epidural application of local anesthetics using thoracic epidural catheters after major abdominal surgery. ⋯ The present study shows that thoracic epidural infusion of ropivacaine 0.375% provides comparable pain relief and incidence of side effects after major abdominal gynecologic surgery as bupivacaine 0.125% in combination with 0.5 microg/mL(-1) sufentanil and may therefore represent an alternative in epidural pain management.