Regional anesthesia and pain medicine
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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.
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The Internet is increasingly an important resource for both the Pain Medicine physician and the patient. Considerable high-quality information exists within numerous government, university, professional association, and private sites. ⋯ Clinicians may communicate about complex patient management issues via a list-serve, which delivers entire discussions to their E-mail accounts. These multiple resources offer an enriched environment for patient care, education, and research in pain management.