Anesthesiology and pain medicine
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Lumbar post-surgery syndrome is common and often results in chronic, persistent pain and disability, which can lead to multiple interventions. After failure of conservative treatment, either surgical treatment or a nonsurgical modality of treatment such as epidural injections, percutaneous adhesiolysis is often contemplated in managing lumbar post surgery syndrome. Recent guidelines and systematic reviews have reached different conclusions about the level of evidence for the efficacy of epidural injections and percutaneous adhesiolysis in managing lumbar post surgery syndrome. The objective of this systematic review was to determine the efficacy of all 3 percutaneous adhesiolysis anatomical approaches (caudal, interlaminar, and transforaminal) in treating lumbar post-surgery syndrome. ⋯ Based on this systematic review, percutaneous adhesiolysis is effective in managing patients with lumbar post-surgery syndrome after the failure of conservative management including fluoroscopically directed epidural injections.
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Persistent postoperative pain (PPP) is defined as persistent pain after surgery of greater than three months' duration. ⋯ This study, apart from attempting to better characterize the problem of PPP, emphasizes the lack of its treatment.
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Failure to maintain an adequate airway can lead to brain damage and death. To reduce the risk of difficulty in maintaining an airway during general anesthesia, there are several known predictors of difficult intubation. People with a Malay background have different craniofacial structures in comparison with other individuals. Therefore, different predictors should be used for patients of Malay race. ⋯ The TMD, with a cut-off point of 65 mm, had superior diagnostic value compared with the HMDR and Mallampati score. Therefore, the TMD could be used in Malay patients to predict the difficulty of larynx visualization during laryngoscopy.
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Hemodynamic fluctuations in response to laryngoscopy and tracheal intubation and their potential hazards have been well-recognized, especially in hypertensive patients. Many drugs in various combinations have been used to attenuate these adverse responses. ⋯ There were no statistical differences between oral clonidine and intravenous lidocaine regarding attenuation of hemodynamic responses after tracheal intubation in controlled hypertensive patients, although the rate of complications including mouth dryness, bradycardia, and orthostatic hypotension was significantly higher in the clonidine group before induction of anesthesia.