Masui. The Japanese journal of anesthesiology
-
In general anesthesia for a patient with dystrophia myotonica (DM), respiratory depression and muscle weakness by opioid, as well as prolongation of the effect of muscle relaxant are seen postoperatively. Therefore it is desirable to choose agents with short duration of action and to dose these medicines to the minimum. We report a case of a 45-year-old woman with DM who underwent laparotomy for uterine cancer under general anesthesia combined with epidural anesthesia. ⋯ Recovery was smooth and fast. The respiratory depression and the muscle spasm were not noticed. RB and RE both with short duration of action, are useful in anesthesia management in DM cases.
-
Epidural anesthesia is widely used in patients who undergo thoracic, abdominal or lower extremity surgeries and generally considered useful for perioperative analgesic management. Epidural catheterization is often associated with some complications including misplacement of the catheter. Epidural catheters are known to be misplaced or migrate into subarachnoidal space, subdural space, vessels and thoracic cavities ; however, frequency, predominant sites of misplacement, and the timing of detection are not fully understood regarding the misplacement of the catheters. ⋯ Epidural catheters were misplaced to subarachnoid space in 6 cases and thoracic cavity in 2 cases. The misplacement of the catheters was found before the induction of general anesthesia in 2 patients, after induction of general anesthesia in 1 patient, during surgical procedure in 3 patients, and postoperatively in 2 patients. Since misplacement of epidural catheters can occur at any moment during perioperative period, continuous monitoring and observation of patients seem to be very important to prevent and minimize the adverse events related to the misplacement of epidural catheters.
-
Comparative Study
[Comparison of levobupivacaine and ropivacaine for postoperative epidural analgesia].
Levobupivacaine is a long acting local anesthetic with less cardiovascular toxicity. Recently we can use levobupivacaine for postoperative analgesia. We retrospectively compared levobupivacaine with ropivacaine for the postoperative epidural analgesia in patients undergoing gynecological abdominal surgery. ⋯ These results suggest that the use of epidural 0.24% levobupivacaine in the patients undergoing the gynecological surgery is superior to the use of 0.19% ropivacaine.