Anesthesia and analgesia
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In late December 2019, several cases of pneumonia of unknown origin were reported from China, which in early January 2020 were announced to be caused by a novel coronavirus. The virus was later denominated severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and defined as the causal agent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Despite massive attempts to contain the disease in China, the virus has spread globally, and COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020. Here we provide a short background on coronaviruses, and describe in more detail the novel SARS-CoV-2 and attempts to identify effective therapies against COVID-19.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Jul 2020
ReviewCardiac Biomarkers for the Prediction and Detection of Adverse Cardiac Events After Noncardiac Surgery: A Narrative Review.
Yearly, more than 200 million people worldwide undergo noncardiac surgery, of whom about 5% will develop cardiovascular complications. Prevention, early recognition, and prompt treatment of these adverse cardiovascular events is therefore an important concern in perioperative medicine. The present narrative review aims to provide an overview and critical analysis of the currently available evidence on the role of biomarkers in perioperative cardiac risk assessment and monitoring of perioperative cardiac events before and after noncardiac surgery.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Jul 2020
Association Between Race and Ethnicity in the Delivery of Regional Anesthesia for Pediatric Patients: A Single-Center Study of 3189 Regional Anesthetics in 25,664 Surgeries.
Racial and ethnic disparities in health care are well documented in the United States, although evidence of disparities in pediatric anesthesia is limited. We sought to determine whether there is an association between race and ethnicity and the use of intraoperative regional anesthesia at a single academic children's hospital. ⋯ In an analysis of patients undergoing surgical anesthesia at a single academic children's hospital, race and ethnicity were not significantly associated with the adjusted ORs of receiving intraoperative regional anesthesia. This finding contrasts with much of the existing health care disparities literature and warrants further study with additional datasets to understand the mechanisms involved.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Jul 2020
New Method of Destroying Waste Anesthetic Gases Using Gas-Phase Photochemistry.
The inhalation anesthetics are potent greenhouse gases. To reduce the global environmental impact of the health care sector, technologies are sought to limit the release of waste anesthetic gas into the atmosphere. ⋯ Based on this prototype study, destroying sevoflurane and desflurane with this photochemical anesthetic waste gas destruction system design is efficient and cost-effective. This is likely also true for other halogenated inhalational anesthetics such as isoflurane. Due to differing chemistry of nitrous oxide, modifications of this prototype photochemical reactor system are necessary to improve its removal efficiency for this gas.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Jul 2020
Obtaining and Modeling Variability in Travel Times From Off-Site Satellite Clinics to Hospitals and Surgery Centers for Surgeons and Proceduralists Seeing Office Patients in the Morning and Performing a To-Follow List of Cases in the Afternoon.
Hospitals achieve growth in surgical caseload primarily from the additive contribution of many surgeons with low caseloads. Such surgeons often see clinic patients in the morning then travel to a facility to do 1 or 2 scheduled afternoon cases. Uncertainty in travel time is a factor that might need to be considered when scheduling the cases of to-follow surgeons. However, this has not been studied. We evaluated variability in travel times within a city with high traffic density. ⋯ During mid-day, when surgeons likely would travel between a clinic and an operating room facility, travel time variability is small compared to case duration prediction variability. Thus, afternoon operating room scheduling should not be restricted because of concern related to unpredictable travel times by surgeons. Providing operating room managers and surgeons with estimated travel times sufficient to allow for a timely arrival on 90% of days may facilitate the scheduling of additional afternoon cases especially at ambulatory facilities with substantial underutilized time.