Anesthesia and analgesia
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Aug 2018
ReviewOpioid Use Disorders: Perioperative Management of a Special Population.
Opioid-related overdose deaths have reached epidemic levels within the last decade. The efforts to prevent, identify, and treat opioid use disorders (OUDs) mostly focus on the outpatient setting. Despite their frequent overrepresentation, less is known about the inpatient management of patients with OUDs. ⋯ Buprenorphine, methadone, and naltrexone medication treatment for OUD and opioid tolerance complicate perioperative pain management. A multidisciplinary team approach is crucial to provide clinically balanced pain relief without jeopardizing the patient's recovery. This article reviews the existing literature on the perioperative management of patients with OUDs and provides clinical suggestions for the optimal care of this patient population.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Aug 2018
Observational StudyA Prospective Observational Study of Anesthesia-Related Adverse Events and Postoperative Complications Occurring During a Surgical Mission in Madagascar.
Two-thirds of the world's population lack access to safe anesthesia and surgical care. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) play an important role in bridging the gap, but surgical outcomes vary. After complex surgeries, up to 20-fold higher postoperative complication rates are reported and the reasons for poor outcomes are undefined. Little is known concerning the incidence of anesthesia complications. Mercy Ships uses fully trained staff, and infrastructure and equipment resources similar to that of high-income countries, allowing the influence of these factors to be disentangled from patient factors when evaluating anesthesia and surgical outcomes after NGO sponsored surgery. We aimed to estimate the incidence of anesthesia-related and postoperative complications during a 2-year surgical mission in Madagascar. ⋯ This study adds to the scarce literature on anesthesia outcomes after mission surgery in low- and middle-income countries. We join others in calling for an international NGO anesthesia and surgical outcome registry and for all surgical NGOs to adopt international standards for the safe practice of anesthesia.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Aug 2018
Repeated Measures Designs and Analysis of Longitudinal Data: If at First You Do Not Succeed-Try, Try Again.
Anesthesia, critical care, perioperative, and pain research often involves study designs in which the same outcome variable is repeatedly measured or observed over time on the same patients. Such repeatedly measured data are referred to as longitudinal data, and longitudinal study designs are commonly used to investigate changes in an outcome over time and to compare these changes among treatment groups. From a statistical perspective, longitudinal studies usually increase the precision of estimated treatment effects, thus increasing the power to detect such effects. ⋯ Such methods can be further divided into so-called "population-average statistical models" that focus on the specification of the mean response of the outcome estimated by generalized estimating equations, and "subject-specific models" that allow a full specification of the distribution of the outcome by using random effects to capture within-subject correlations. The choice as to which approach to choose partly depends on the aim of the research and the desired interpretation of the estimated effects (population-average versus subject-specific interpretation). This tutorial discusses aspects of the theoretical background for each technique, and with specific examples of studies published in Anesthesia & Analgesia, demonstrates how these techniques are used in practice.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Aug 2018
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative StudyA Randomized Trial Comparing the Effect of Fiberoptic Selection and Guidance Versus Random Selection, Blind Insertion, and Direct Laryngoscopy, on the Incidence and Severity of Epistaxis After Nasotracheal Intubation.
Epistaxis, or nasal bleeding, is a common complication after nasotracheal intubation (NTI). Because such bleeding is likely related to trauma during intubation, use of fiberoptic visualization and guidance rather than direct laryngoscopy may affect the incidence and severity of epistaxis. We compared the incidence of epistaxis after NTI using a fiberoptic versus a direct laryngoscopy approach. ⋯ Fiberoptic nostril selection and guidance during NTI reduced the incidence and severity of epistaxis when compared with NTI performed via blind insertion and direct laryngoscopy.