Anesthesia and analgesia
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Dec 2024
The Impact of Medicaid Expansion on Congenital Heart Surgery Outcomes: Data From the Society of Thoracic Surgeons Database.
The Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid eligibility and increased public insurance coverage for children across the United States. As only a subset of states adopted expansion of coverage, disparities in insurance coverage between expansion and nonexpansion states emerged. We examined the association between Medicaid expansion and cardiac surgery outcomes to understand the impact of Medicaid expansion in a medically complex pediatric population. We hypothesized that expansion of Medicaid eligibility would be associated with greater improvement in surgical outcomes. ⋯ There was an overall decline in congenital heart surgery mortality over time; however, states that expanded Medicaid eligibility did not experience a greater improvement in mortality relative to states that did not expand eligibility. Similarly, there was no significant difference in major complications or PLOS related to Medicaid expansion. Further studies are needed to examine long-term outcomes and the larger spectrum of accessibility to congenital cardiac care which may benefit from insurance coverage.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Dec 2024
The Association of Fructose Metabolism With Anesthesia/Surgery-Induced Lactate Production.
In elderly individuals, excessive lactate levels in the brain may be associated with the development of cognitive impairment after surgery, including delayed neurocognitive recovery (dNCR). Since the origin of this increased lactate is unknown, here we assessed associations between metabolic pathways and postoperative dNCR. ⋯ These results suggest that anesthesia/surgery activates fructose metabolism, producing excessive lactate in the brain that is associated with postoperative cognitive impairment. Fructose metabolism is thus a potential therapeutic target for dNCR.