Arch Surg Chicago
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Influence of operating room surface contamination on surgical wounds: a prospective study.
The influence of operating room contamination on wound infection rates in clean, clean-contaminated, contaminated, and septid procedures was studied by a prospective randomized study of 2,020 surgical wounds. Operating room surface contamination was assessed by the RODAC bacterial plate method. Control rooms uniformly received Wet-Vac cleaning between operations. ⋯ The difference in surface contamination between groups of experimental and control rooms was found to be significant at the P less than .05 level. Patients operated on in experimental and control rooms were followed up postoperatively to assess whether they experienced wound infection. No statistically significant differences in wound infection rates were found between experimental and control room operations as total groups, clean procedures, or operations of long duration.
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Delirium has been defined as a condition of cerebral insufficiency consisting of impairment of cognitive processes, with a characteristic slowing of the electroencephalographic pattern. Present also is a global "clouding" of consciousness, resulting from a potentially reversible impairment of ability to maintain attention. In these states there is usually a simultaneous diminution of the ability to think, perceive, and remember. ⋯ Postoperative delirium is seen more often in patients over 50 years of age, in those who are "vigilant" or overalert, and in those undergoing more complex surgery. Adverse influences in the postoperative period are certain drugs and the psychological stresses engendered by the ICU environment. Appropriate management obtains from attention to the impact of the strange enviornment on the patient.
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Nonsuppurative peripheral thrombophlebitis is a frequently recognized source of sepsis. Eleven patients cared for on general medical and surgical services had Gram-negative bacillary sepsis on this basis. Ten had isolation of organisms of the Klebsiella-Enterobacter group from the involved peripheral vein. ⋯ It is strongly emphasized that this condition is a source of life-threatening sepsis that can be treated by vein excision at the bedside. The treatment in our patients resulted in no morbidity. A high index of suspicion is necessary to diagnose this occult source of sepsis because of the minimal local physical signs.
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In anesthetized dogs, a pneumatic tourniquet was applied to a hind limb for one, two, or three hours. Resultant ischemic damage to skeletal muscle was assessed by creatine phosphokinase (CPK) levels in the femoral venous blood of the experimental limb after the tourniquet was released. ⋯ When a three-hour occlusion was interrupted for 15 minutes after each hour in three experiments, elevation of CPK levels was minimal or absent. Thus, skeletal muscle injury, as measured by the level of venous CPK elevation, becomes apparent after two to three hours of occlusion and can be prevented by short periods of recirculation.
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Malignant hyperthermia is induced by potent inhalation anesthetics. Enflurane must be added to the list of those anesthetic agents (such as halothane and succinylcholine) that are associated with this condition. ⋯ The other possible causes of hyperthermia in the patient were investigated and eliminated, and the condition was finally associated with enflurane. Enflurane should not be used in patients with a family history of this rare but often lethal disorder.