Masui. The Japanese journal of anesthesiology
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Neurological complications related to spinal anesthesia are exceptional, but their consequences are serious. We report a case of conversion disorder, which was initially diagnosed as monoplegia caused by spinal anesthesia. The patient was a 36-year-old, 88 kg woman with a history of psychogenic aphonia. ⋯ The reflexes and muscle's tonus were normal and EMG gave normal findings. The result of neurological diagnosis, confirmed the diagnosis of conversion disorder causing her monoplegia because she was under psychic stressful circumstances from her family. Conversion disorder as a cause of monoplegia after surgery under spinal anesthesia should be kept in mind.
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Although peripartum cardiac arrest is rare, the prognosis of the event may be worse than in nonpregnant patients because the events is often associated with pulmonary or amniotic embolisms. The following report is a case of cardiac arrest which occurred at the induction of anesthesia for the postpartum hysterectomy. A 31-year-old woman was treated with infusion of ritodrine chloride for preterm labor and placenta previa. ⋯ Since she was not resuscitated with cardiac massage, we started intravenous epinephrine, electronic cardioversion, the percutaneous cardiopulmonary support and intra-aortic balloon pumping with epinephrine and dopamine infusions leading to a successfully outcome. In this case, we believe that the combination of propofol and suxamethonium had the most impact on producing the cardiac arrest. Therefore, the case emphasizes the potential danger of using these combination for patients who have been treated with ritodrine.
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Perioperative mortality and morbidity in Japan for the year 2000 were studied retrospectively. Committee on Operating Room Safety of Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists (JSA) sent confidential questionnaires to 794 Certified Training Hospitals of JSA and received answers from 67.6% of the hospitals. We analyzed their answers with a special reference to the age group. ⋯ Its mortality rate in each group was 0.00, 0.00, 0.21, 0.14, 0.06, 0.04, or 0.00. There were eleven cases of death or vegetative state due to anesthetic management, like improper management of airway and overdose of anesthetics. Some of them were preventable with the anesthesiologists' effort in protocol development and skilled assistance.
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We experienced four cases of craniotomy in which motor evoked potential (MEP) and somatosensory evoked potential (SEP) were monitored alternately. Anesthesia was induced with propofol and fentanyl, and it was maintained with continuous infusion of propofol. ⋯ We could obtain the largest amplitude of MEP using five consecutive stimuli of which duration and frequency were 0.5 milliseconds and 500 Hz, respectively. Anesthetic management using propofol and fentanyl is useful for craniotomy with monitoring of MEP and SEP.