Minerva anestesiologica
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Minerva anestesiologica · Oct 1997
Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical Trial[Respiratory circuits and infections of the airway].
To study the effects of ventilator circuit changes on the rate of airway infections and to investigate the relationship between the microorganisms responsible for circuit colonization and those responsible for infection. ⋯ Changing the ventilator circuit every 10 days rather than every 5 days, does not increase the incidence of airway infections and result in considerable savings in the expenses of tubing and personnel time. The infection or colonization rates due to the same microorganisms are quite low and it seems not useful to make routine cultures of fluid from humidifying cascades and the expiratory tubing traps in order to characterize in time the microorganism that could be responsible of airway infections.
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Minerva anestesiologica · Oct 1997
Clinical Trial[Intensity of treatment and severity of illness in the intensive care unit (ICU)].
To investigate the relationship between Therapeutic Intervention Scoring System (TISS), length of ICU stay and severity of illness. ⋯ Intensity of treatment is essentially steady and total TISS is well related to length of ICU stay. Total TISS increases with increasing risk of hospital death predicted by SAPS II and APACHE II, but it is high especially in non surviving patients with low probability of hospital mortality at the admission.
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Minerva anestesiologica · Oct 1997
Case Reports[Anesthesiologic management of susceptible children at risk for malignant hyperthermia].
In order to prevent malignant hyperthermia (MH) in children, the authors are currently using a perioperative anaesthetic protocol. In vitro contracture tests with halothane and caffein are performed in selected patients: those with previous signs suggestive of MH, but not severe enough for a definite diagnosis; those with susceptibility to MH in their relatives; those affected by myopathies or other disorders very frequently associated with MH. ⋯ However, prophylactic dantrolene is never employed. In this way, over the last decade no episodes of classic malignant hyperthermia in a large number of children submitted to anaesthesia (more than 50,000) have been observed.