Anesthesia and analgesia
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Jun 2020
ReviewPalliative Care and End-of-Life Considerations for the Frail Patient.
Patients with frailty experience substantial physical and emotional distress related to their condition and face increased morbidity and mortality compared with their nonfrail peers. Palliative care is an interdisciplinary medical specialty focused on improving quality of life for patients with serious illness, including those with frailty, throughout their disease course. ⋯ We highlight the opportunities to incorporate primary palliative care, including basic symptom management and straightforward goals-of-care discussions, provided by the primary clinicians, and when necessary, timely consultation by a specialty palliative care team to assist with complex symptom management and goals-of-care discussions in the face of team and/or family conflict. In this review, we apply the principles of palliative care to patients with frailty and synthesize the evidence regarding methods to integrate palliative care into the perioperative and ICU settings.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Jun 2020
One Size Does Not Fit All: A Perspective on the American Society of Anesthesiologists Physical Status Classification for Pediatric Patients.
The American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status (ASA-PS) classification system is used worldwide to classify patients based on comorbid conditions before general anesthesia. Despite its popularity, the ASA-PS classification system has been shown to have poor interrater reliability due to its subjective definitions, especially when applied to the pediatric population. We hypothesized that the clarification of ASA-PS definitions to better reflect pediatric conditions would improve the accuracy of ASA-PS applied to this population. ⋯ The ASA-PS classification system has several benefits including ease-of-use, simplicity, and flexibility. However, revising the ASA-PS system to provide better guidance for pediatric patients could be valuable. While this study demonstrates good interrater reliability with the included ASA-PS pediatric definitions, further work is needed to clarify accurate assignment of ASA-PS within the midrange of the scale (ASA-PS II and III) and explore its implementation in other institutions.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Jun 2020
American Society for Enhanced Recovery and Perioperative Quality Initiative Joint Consensus Statement on Postoperative Delirium Prevention.
Postoperative delirium is a geriatric syndrome that manifests as changes in cognition, attention, and levels of consciousness after surgery. It occurs in up to 50% of patients after major surgery and is associated with adverse outcomes, including increased hospital length of stay, higher cost of care, higher rates of institutionalization after discharge, and higher rates of readmission. Furthermore, it is associated with functional decline and cognitive impairments after surgery. ⋯ Because delirium is a common and consequential postoperative complication, there has been an abundance of recent research focused on delirium, conducted by clinicians from a variety of specialties. There have also been several reviews and recommendation statements; however, these have not been based on robust evidence. The Sixth Perioperative Quality Initiative (POQI-6) consensus conference brought together a team of multidisciplinary experts to formally survey and evaluate the literature on postoperative delirium prevention and provide evidence-based recommendations using an iterative Delphi process and Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) Criteria for evaluating biomedical literature.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Jun 2020
Renal Morbidity of 6% Hydroxyethyl Starch 130/0.4 in 9000 Propensity Score Matched Pairs of Surgical Patients.
Several studies of critically ill patients reported that fluid resuscitation with hydroxyethyl starch (HES) solutions damages the kidneys, but their use for surgical patients is debated. Because different HES preparations have different safety profiles, we sought to determine whether 6% third-generation HES 130/0.4 was associated with renal morbidity when used for surgical patients. ⋯ The present study did not demonstrate that 6% HES 130/0.4 increased the incidence and the severity of postoperative AKI. It was associated with a lower incidence of RRT when used for surgical patients.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Jun 2020
Use of Coagulation Point-of-Care Tests in the Management of Anticoagulation and Bleeding in Pediatric Cardiac Surgery: A Systematic Review.
Bleeding and coagulation management are essential aspects in the management of neonates and children undergoing cardiac surgery. The use of point-of-care tests (POCTs) in a pediatric setting is not as widely used as in the adult setting. This systematic review aims to summarize the evidence showed by the literature regarding the use of POCTs in children undergoing cardiac surgery. ⋯ Eighty articles were found, of which 47 are presented in this review. At present, literature data are too weak to define POCTs as a "gold standard" for the treatment of perioperative bleeding in pediatric cardiac surgery. Nevertheless, introduction of POCTs into postoperative algorithms has shown to improve bleeding management, patient outcome, and cost efficiency.