Articles: analgesics.
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Intensive care medicine · Mar 1982
Epidural analgesia or mechanical ventilation for multiple Rib fractures?
A protocol for treating thoracic trauma is proposed. Severe pulmonary lesion with increased venous admixture (e.g. contusio, atelectasis, aspiration) is treated by mechanical ventilation. Rib fractures with minor pulmonary lesion and therefore with only moderately abnormal gas exchange but with remarkably reduced vital capacity (even with flail chest) are controlled by thoracic epidural analgesia following vital capacity, tidal volume and respiratory rate. ⋯ The indication for a mechanical ventilation or for spontaneous breathing with thoracic epidural analgesia is therefore deducted more from functional variables than from morphological facts. The course of a consecutive series of 283 patients is presented. 155 patients were treated with primary ventilation and 112 patients with primary epidural analgesia, while 16 patients could be managed with general analgesia. The duration of treatment morbidity and mortality show this protocol to be very useful.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Feb 1982
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical TrialEpidural morphine for postoperative pain relief: a comparative study with intramuscular narcotic and intercostal nerve block.
The relatively new technique of epidural morphine analgesia was compared with two well established method of pain relief in 90 patients undergoing gallbladder surgery and divided randomly into three groups of 30 patients each. The first group received intramuscular narcotic analgesic ketobemidone, the second group was given 0.5% bupivacaine-epinephrine intercostal nerve block, and the third group received a single dose of 4 mg of epidural morphine for postoperative pain relief. The mean duration of analgesia after ketobemidone was 5.5 hours, and after intercostal block 11 hours. ⋯ Delayed respiratory depression was not encountered after epidural morphine. It is concluded that a single dose of 4 mg of epidural morphine provides excellent regional analgesia of long duration without drowsiness or circulatory of respiratory depression thus facilitating early ambulation. The technique is superior to more common methods of pain relief after gallbladder surgery, e.g., intercostal nerve block and intramuscular narcotics.
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In a total of 150 patients undergoing coronary revascularization procedures etomidate was given for the induction of anaesthesia using 12 different dosages and combinations with piritramide, morphine, fentanyl and nitrous oxide. The aim of this study was to establish a method which would result in the smallest possible changes in arterial blood pressure and heart rate during the whole of the induction period, including the stressful phase of endotracheal intubation. In 68 patients cardiac output and pulmonary artery pressure were also measured. ⋯ 1. In general, more favourable results were obtained when anaesthetic drugs were administered extremely slowly (e.g. by infusion) and according to a standardized dosetime regime. Conversely, the commonly used method - slow incremental injections according to the estimated requirements of the individual patient - led to much greater variations of arterial pressure, especially when fentanyl was combined with etomidate. 2. Combinations of etomidate and morphine led to unsatisfactory results. Dependent on the dose given, hypertension or hypotension were commonly seen. When piritramide was substituted for morphine much more stable haemodynamic conditions were obtained. 3. Surveying our investigations to find the most suitable dose relationship between the hypnotic, etomidate, and the opioid analgesic, piritramide, only small and negligible differences were found: comparing two procedures for the induction of anaesthesia using either high dose piritramide (3 mg . kg-1 given over 10 min), supplemented by low dose etomidate (0.1 mg . kg-1 given over the first 2 min) or an etomidate infusion (50 gamma . kg-1 . min-1) supplemented by a low dose piritramide (0.3 mg . kg-1 given over 1 min) excellent results were found in both groups. 4. In contrast, studies aimed at achieving equally favourable results using the combination of etomidate-fentanyl suggested that the safe dose-range of fentanyl is very narrow: etomidate-infusion (50 gamma . kg-1 . min-1) together with fentanyl 3 gamma . kg-1 led to unacceptable rises in blood pressure and heart rate after intubation, and the larger dose of 6 gamma . kg-1 fentanyl frequently led to hypotension.