Anesthesia and analgesia
-
Anesthesia and analgesia · Feb 2014
ReviewWhat's New in Obstetric Anesthesia? The 2013 Gerard W. Ostheimer Lecture.
The "What's New in Obstetric Anesthesia?" keynote lecture was established by the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology in memory of the eminent obstetric anesthesiologist, Dr. Gerard W. ⋯ The Ostheimer lecture, delivered this year at the annual meeting of the Society in April 2013 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, included highly relevant papers that have the potential to change obstetric anesthesia practice or impact public health. This review summarizes 5 categories of pertinent articles that were published in 2012 and discussed in the 2013 Ostheimer lecture: maternal diseases, labor and delivery, advances in obstetric anesthesia, obstetric complications, and anesthesia-related complications.
-
Anesthesia and analgesia · Feb 2014
ReviewDNA testing for malignant hyperthermia: the reality and the dream.
The advent of the polymerase chain reaction and the availability of data from various global human genome projects should make it possible, using a DNA sample isolated from white blood cells, to diagnose rapidly and accurately almost any monogenic condition resulting from single nucleotide changes. DNA-based diagnosis for malignant hyperthermia (MH) is an attractive proposition, because it could replace the invasive and morbid caffeine-halothane/in vitro contracture tests of skeletal muscle biopsy tissue. Moreover, MH is preventable if an accurate diagnosis of susceptibility can be made before general anesthesia, the most common trigger of an MH episode. ⋯ This will remain the bottleneck unless high throughput platforms can be designed for functional work. Analysis of entire genomes from several individuals simultaneously is a reality. DNA testing for MH, based on current criteria, remains the dream.