A&A practice
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Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has established its role as a "third eye of a clinician" by virtue of its ability to provide real-time visual information. The present case highlights the role of POCUS in an 11-year-old girl with a misplaced hemodialysis catheter scheduled for surgical exploration with the removal of the catheter and direct arterial repair.
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Transporting spontaneously ventilating adults with tracheostomies from the operating room (OR) or other anesthetizing locations to the intensive care unit (ICU) or other recovery locations presents significant challenges, as traditional T-pieces may not be readily available. This article describes a novel modification to the Ayre's T-piece, designed to address this gap by using readily available equipment. The modification integrates a 3-mL syringe, a size 7.0 endotracheal tube (ETT) connector, and oxygen tubing from an adult under-the-chin style facemask while adapting the expiratory and inspiratory limbs of the anesthesia circuit.
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Caudal epidural catheters threaded to the thoracic levels are increasingly utilized in infants undergoing thoracic and abdominal surgery, compared to lumbar or thoracic epidural techniques. Estimating catheter length traditionally relies on anatomical landmarks, but the lack of spine ossification in infants makes ultrasonography a valuable and noninvasive tool. We present 3 cases where real-time ultrasonography facilitated caudal to thoracic epidural catheter placement in infants undergoing thoraco-abdominal surgeries. Incision-congruent placement of the catheter tip ensured effective perioperative analgesia with low doses of bupivacaine administered as intermittent boluses resulting in potent and prolonged analgesia with reduced opioid requirements.
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Clavicle fractures are the most common fractures of the shoulder girdle. Due to the complex sensory innervation of the clavicle, patients' pain scores are high in the postoperative period. ⋯ It provides analgesia between C3 and T10. In this case report, our experience with SPSIPB, which we applied for rescue analgesia in a patient who underwent surgery for a clavicle fracture, is described.
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Case Reports
Thoracic Continuous Spinal Anesthesia in Patients With Destroyed Lung Resulted in Favorable Perioperative Outcome.
Among patients needing open abdominal surgery, those with high-risk medical conditions impose significant challenges from an anesthesia point of view. Thoracic continuous spinal anesthesia (TCSA) is an evolving technique that may be beneficial for a subset of patients with underlying high-risk medical conditions where general anesthesia (GA) becomes a relative contraindication. TCSA, as a primary anesthesia technique, is gaining favor for its advantages over GA in open abdominal surgery as it avoids airway intervention and mechanical ventilation. The current article focuses on TCSA in 2 patients at high risk for GA, which resulted in favorable perioperative outcomes.