Minerva anestesiologica
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Peripheral neural blockade techniques are commonly used procedures to provide perioperative anesthesia and analgesia. Several continuous infusion catheter techniques have been described to extend the use of peripheral neural blockade into the postoperative period as an effective method of providing pain management. The analgesic benefit of continuous local anesthetic peripheral block in the management of postoperative pain is primarily related to the properties of providing intense analgesia thereby reducing perioperative opioid requirements and opioid-related side effects and promoting early recovery of postoperative activity. ⋯ The sciatic nerve is the largest nerve in the body and it lies deep in the posterior thigh. According to its anatomy, the sciatic nerve can then be reached at different levels from the parasacral space to the popliteal fossa, ideally identifying a sciatic line running from the inferior border of the gluteus maximus muscle between the greater throcanter and the ischiatic tuberosity to the popliteal fossa. A variety of continuous peripheral blocks have been described in this paper including continuous sciatic block at several levels (para-sacral nerve block, subgluteal sciatic nerve block) and popliteal nerve block.
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Recent surveys show that many patients still receive inadequate post-surgical analgesia, this problem is international in character. Analgesia techniques like patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) and spinal opioids alone or in combination with local anaesthetics provide superior pain relief compared to intermittent i.m. injections of opioids. Patient satisfaction with these techniques is high; however, reduced pain and suffering or high patient satisfaction is not considered sufficient in this age of diminished health care budgets. ⋯ Evidence that peripheral nerve blocks are better than PCA and safer than epidural increases. One reason why improved outcome is difficult to demonstrate is that pain management strategies are not integrated with overall perioperative care and postoperative rehabilitation of the patient. The importance of a good APS in developing cost-effective, evidence-based pain treatment strategies for different surgical procedures should not be underestimated.
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Minerva anestesiologica · Sep 2001
Review[Prehydratation and anaesthesia in obstetrics: state of the art].
All epidural or spinal techniques using local anaesthetics causes some degree of sympathetic blockade resulting in peripheral vasodilatation and possibly hypotension or reduction in cardiac output. In the practical clinic, administration of fluids intravenously prior spinal and epidural anaesthesia is required to prevent maternal hypotension and fetal hypoxia. We evaluated in this review the efficacy of volume preloading on the incidence of hypotension after spinal or epidural anaesthesia for caesarean delivery. ⋯ Implications. We performed a review to determine whether fluid loading reduced the incidence of low blood pressure after spinal or epidural anaesthesia for caesarean delivery. Although no technique totally eliminates the occurrence of hypotension, colloid administration (starch or gelatin containing fluids) was the most effective.
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Minerva anestesiologica · Sep 2001
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial[Sufentanil vs morphine combined with ropivacaine for thoracic epidural analgesia in major abdominal surgery].
Pain, postoperative ileus, nausea, vomiting are the universal complications after major abdominal surgery. The aim of this study was to assess pain relief, side effects and recovery of gastrointestinal function during epidural analgesia with ropivacaine plus sufentanil and ropivacaine plus morphine after major abdominal surgery. ⋯ Continuous administration of epidural ropivacaine combined with sufentanil or with morphine resulted in good analgesia. Epidural analgesia with ropivacaine plus sufentanil provided the best balance of analgesia, side effects and recovery of gastrointestinal function.
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Minerva anestesiologica · Sep 2001
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial[Levobupivacaine for peripheral blocks of the lower limb: a clinical comparison with bupivacaine and ropivacaine].
The aim of this study was the comparison of clinical profile of sciatic nerve block performed with either 0,5% levobupivacaine, 0,5% bupivacaine, or 0,5% ropivacaine. ⋯ Using 0,5% levobupivacaine for sciatic nerve block results in similar clinical effects as those produced by using the same volume and concentration of either bupivacaine or ropivacaine.