Anaesthesia and intensive care
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Anaesth Intensive Care · Aug 1991
Level of consciousness on arrival in the recovery room and the development of early respiratory morbidity.
An audit review of 16,065 patients undergoing operative procedures under general anaesthesia was carried out to examine the relationship between early postoperative respiratory complications and the level of consciousness of patients on arrival in the recovery room. In patients aged over ten years, the incidence of respiratory complications was significantly (P less than 0.005) related to the level of consciousness independent of ASA grade or age. Since the level of consciousness of patients arriving in the recovery room could be modified by changes to anaesthetic practice it is concluded that a significant reduction in respiratory complications might be possible if anaesthetists used general anaesthetic techniques which returned patients awake to the recovery room.
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Anaesth Intensive Care · Aug 1991
Studies on Australian snake venoms, Part II: The haematological effects of brown snake (Pseudonaja) species in the dog.
The haematological effects of Brown Snake (Pseudonaja) species (textilis, affinis, nuchalis) were studied in anaesthetised, mechanically ventilated dogs. Marked thrombocytopenia, depletion of serum fibrinogen and prolonged prothrombin and activated partial thromboplastin time, were recorded at 5 to 10 and 30 to 40 minutes after intravenous envenomation. Fibrin degradation products were not elevated. Because these haematological effects occurred simultaneously with cardiovascular depression (previously reported), we postulate that hypotension sometimes observed in human envenomation may be due to intravascular coagulation with myocardial ischaemia.