F1000Research
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Lumbar epidural anesthesia is commonly used for labor analgesia. The 'loss-of- resistance' to air technique (LORA) is generally employed for recognition of the epidural space. One of the rare complications of this technique is pneumocephalus (PC). ⋯ Computed tomography scans of the brain indicated PC. Following symptomatic treatment, our patient was discharged on the 13th day. We concluded that the amount of air used to identify the epidural space in LORA should be minimized, LORA should not be used after dural puncture and the use of saline avoids PC complications.
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To report the burden and cost of actinic keratosis (AK) treatment in Australia and to forecast the number of AK treatments and the associated costs to 2020. ⋯ The number of AK cryotherapy treatments increased by 160% between 1994 and 2012. we forecast that the number of treatments will increase by 30% between 2012 and 2020. The rates of non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) and AK appear to be increasing at the same rate. During the period 2010 to 2015 AK is anticipated to increase by 17.8% which follows a similar trend to published data that forecasts an increase in NMSC treatments of 22.3%.
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We describe the insertion of the double lumen endobronchial tube (DLT) using a non-channeled standard blade of the King Vision (TM) videolaryngoscope for one lung ventilation (OLV) in a morbidly obese patient with a predicted difficult airway, severe restrictive pulmonary function, asthma, and hypertension. The patient was scheduled for a video-assisted thoracoscopic lung biopsy. The stylet of the DLT was bent to fit the natural curve of the #3 non-channeled blade of the King Vision (™) videolaryngoscope. We conclude that the use of King Vision (™) videolaryngoscope could offer an effective method of DLT placement for OLV.
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There are few predictors of difficult mask ventilation and a simple, objective, predictive system to identify patients at risk of difficult mask ventilation does not currently exist. We present a retrospective - subgroup analysis aimed at identifying predictive factors for difficult mask ventilation (DMV) in patients undergoing pre-operative airway assessment before elective surgery at a major teaching hospital. ⋯ The results of this study confirm that in a real world clinical setting, the incidence of DMV is not negligible and suggest the use of a simple bedside predictive score to improve the accuracy of DMV prediction, thereby improving patient safety. Further prospective studies to validate this score would be useful.
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Background Difficult Mask Ventilation (DMV), is a situation in which it is impossible for an unassisted anesthesiologist to maintain oxygen saturation >90% using 100% oxygen and positive pressure ventilation to prevent or reverse signs of inadequate ventilation during mask ventilation. The incidence varies from 0.08 - 15%. Patient-related anatomical features are by far the most significant cause. We analyzed data from an obese surgical population (BMI> 30 kg/m (2)) to identify specific risk and predictive factors for DMV. Methods Five hundred and fifty seven obese patients were identified from a database of 1399 cases associated with preoperative airway examinations where mask ventilation was attempted. ⋯ Conclusion According to the current investigation, the three predictive factors are strongly associated with DMV in obese patients. Each independent risk factor alone provides a good screening for DMV and two factors substantially improve specificity. Based on our analysis, we speculate that the absence of at least 2 of the factors we identified might have a significant negative predictive value and can reasonably exclude DMV, with a negative likelihood ratio 0.81.