Cahiers d'anesthésiologie
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The occurrence of bleeding in trauma patients is a life-threatening problem which can be explained by different mechanisms. The infusion of cristalloids, colloids, packed red blood cells, or even fresh frozen plasma is very rarely responsible for bleeding but it can contribute to dilute the patient's platelet pool, and especially dilutional thrombocytopenia is the first cause of bleeding after massive transfusion. Blood coagulation factor activity is decreased after a massive fluid infusion is performed but it has to reach a dramatically low plasma level in order to induce troubles. ⋯ Hypothermia can also impair platelet function and worsen the bleeding. A simplified monitoring of haemostasis can be proposed with platelet count, whole blood coagulation clotting time, immediately available activated partial thromboplastin time and prothrombin time with bedside portable monitors and thromboelastography. Haematocrit and body temperature have to be monitored as well.
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Regional anaesthesia has been increasingly popular in paediatric patients of all ages, especially because some techniques afford excellent per and post-operative pain relief. However, side effects may occur. Particularly, systemic toxicity from bupivacaine administration is associated with intravascular injection or overdosage. ⋯ Management of the best method of block, doses and local anaesthetics or adjuvants according age, requires likely specific teaching in training team. An effort to provide appropriate guidelines and training to ward nurses is necessary to improve security when regional blockade is used for postoperative analgesia. In every cases, physician's experience is the best argument of choice.
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The placental transfer of local anaesthetics (LA) depends on maternal, placental and fetal factors. The assessment of effects of LA and epidural anaesthesia (EA) on the fetus is based on the monitoring of fetal heart rate (FHR) and the measurement of the fetal pH. Apgar score and neurobehavioral tests allow an evaluation of the neonatal effects of the drugs used. ⋯ Neurobehavioral scores are better after EA than after GA. For emergency caesarean section, the percentage of newborns with an Apgar score < 4 or necessitating a respiratory assistance is more important after GA than after EA. However, the perinatal mortality is not more important after GA than after EA.
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Cahiers d'anesthésiologie · Jan 1995
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial[Comparative study of sufentanil and fentanyl in urologic surgery in adults].
Sufentanil is compared with fentanyl as a supplement to N2O isoflurane anaesthesia in a double blind study of 30 elderly patients undergoing major urological surgery. Comparison is made with respect to 1) haemodynamic (heart rate, blood pressure) responses during surgery and recovery; 2) time to extubation after the end of surgery; 3) Postoperative analgesia. No difference is observed between the two groups with respect to demographic data, duration of surgery, and total doses of muscle relaxants. ⋯ Times between end of surgery and extubation are different: 77 +/- 13 min the sufentanil group versus 57 +/- 22 min the fentanyl group (p < 0.05). Use of analgesia is significantly delayed in the sufentanil group. It is suggested that sufentanil, in elderly patients, provides a better haemodynamic stability and a greater residual analgesia than fentanyl in the immediate postoperative period.
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Cahiers d'anesthésiologie · Jan 1995
[Difficult intubation: a prospective evaluation of the Mallampati and Wilson tests].
This prospective study aimed to evaluate in 849 patients the Mallampati and Wilson scores for predicting a difficult intubation. All scheduled patients were included. Induction and tracheal intubation were carried out as usual. ⋯ However, data from literature show a great variability of results between studies. Many factors may contribute to this variability: differences between samples of patients, evaluation of Mallampati or Wilson scale, protocols of induction and intubation or characterization of difficult intubation. This study suggests a poor reliability of the two tests.