Articles: operative.
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Over the past decade, the mechanisms underlying placebo effects have begun to be identified. At the same time, the placebo response appears to have increased in pharmacological trials and marked placebo effects are found in neurostimulation and surgical trials, thereby posing the question whether non-pharmacological interventions should be placebo-controlled to a greater extent. In this narrative review we discuss how the knowledge of placebo mechanisms may help to improve placebo control in pharmacological and non-pharmacological trials. ⋯ Finally, we discuss how systematic investigations into placebo mechanisms across various pain conditions and types of treatment are needed in order to 'personalise' the placebo control to the specific pathophysiology and interventions, which may ultimately lead to identification of more effective treatment for pain patients. In conclusion this review shows that it is important to understand how patients' perception and expectations influence the efficacy of active and placebo treatments in order to improve the test of new treatments. Importantly, this applies not only to assessment of drug efficacy but also to non-pharmacological trials on surgeries and stimulation procedures.
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Minerva anestesiologica · Jun 2019
Meta Analysis Comparative StudyInhalation versus intravenous anesthesia for adults undergoing heart valve surgery: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Many studies have found that volatile anesthetics are associated with improved clinical outcomes for adults undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting. However, the effect of volatile anesthetics for adults after heart valve surgery has been unclear. So we conducted a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to explore whether the choice of an anesthetic regimen might influence patients' outcomes after valve surgery. ⋯ Among patients undergoing heart valve surgery, the use of inhalation anesthesia compared with TIVA failed to demonstrate superiority for survival and major postoperative complications, and the evidence was insufficient to draw firm conclusions due to the limited sample size. A determination of equivalence or superiority between these two anesthetic regimens requires further researches.