Anesthesiology
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Obese patients are characterized by normal chest-wall elastance and high pleural pressure and have been excluded from trials assessing best strategies to set positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The authors hypothesized that severely obese patients with ARDS present with a high degree of lung collapse, reversible by titrated PEEP preceded by a lung recruitment maneuver. ⋯ Among the PEEP titration strategies tested, setting PEEP according to a PEEPDECREMENTAL trial preceded by a recruitment maneuver obtained the best lung function by decreasing lung overdistension and collapse, restoring lung elastance, and oxygenation suggesting lung tissue recruitment.
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Cranial sonography is a widely used point-of-care modality in infants. The authors evaluated that the respiratory variation of the internal carotid artery blood flow peak velocity as measured using transfontanelle ultrasound can predict fluid responsiveness in infants. ⋯ The respiratory variation of the internal carotid artery blood flow peak velocity as measured using transfontanelle ultrasound predicted an increase in stroke volume in response to fluid. Further research is required to establish any wider generalizability of the results.
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Perioperative hypotension is associated with cardiovascular events in patients having noncardiac surgery. It is unknown if the severity of preexisting coronary artery disease determines susceptibility to the cardiovascular risks of perioperative hypotension. ⋯ In patients having noncardiac surgery, perioperative hypotension was associated with cardiovascular events regardless of the degree of coronary artery disease on preoperative coronary computed tomographic angiography.
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Technology for cardiac output (CO) and blood volume measurements has been developed based on blood dilution with a small bolus of physiologic body temperature saline, which, after transcardiopulmonary mixing, is detected with ultrasound sensors attached to an extracorporeal arteriovenous loop using existing central venous and peripheral arterial catheters. This study aims to compare the precision and agreement of this technology to measure cardiac output with a reference method, a perivascular flow probe placed around the aorta, in young children. The null hypothesis is that the methods are equivalent in precision, and there is no bias in the cardiac output measurements. ⋯ The technology to measure cardiac output with ultrasound detection of blood dilution after a bolus injection of saline yields comparable precision as cardiac output measurements by a periaortic flow probe. The difference in accuracy in the measured cardiac output between the methods can be explained by the coronary blood flow, which is excluded in the cardiac output measurements by the periaortic flow probe.