Anaesthesia
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Postoperative headache in young patients after spinal anaesthesia.
Spinal anaesthesia was performed on 247 young adult patients with a 25-G needle. Rectal administration of indomethacin had no significant effect on the incidence of postdural puncture headache, which occurred in 16.8% of patients who received the drug compared to 24.5% who received a placebo. A history of headache pre-operatively did not influence the incidence of postlumbar puncture headache.
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A 67-year-old woman suffered cardiovascular collapse during induction of anaesthesia. This was later shown to be anaphylactic in origin; the causative agent was alcuronium. ⋯ Future anaesthesia with decreased risk was thereby assured. The clinical nature of this reaction and a review of the literature implicate the cardiovascular system as the principal target in this type of reaction to alcuronium and suggest that the heart is directly involved.
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Case Reports
Respiratory depression after intrathecal opioids. Report of a patient receiving long-term epidural opioid therapy.
Morphine 20 mg and pethidine 50 mg were accidentally injected intrathecally in a patient who had received large doses of opioids epidurally for cancer pain and who had shown tolerance to their effects. The well established tolerance to spinal opioids did not protect the patient against a moderate degree of respiratory depression. Morphine concentrations 6.5 hours after the morphine injection were 103,500 ng/ml and 52 ng/ml in cerebrospinal fluid and serum, respectively.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Pethidine compared with meptazinol during labour. A prospective randomised double-blind study in 1100 patients.
A randomised double-blind comparison of pethidine and meptazinol used as analgesics in labour was carried out in 1,100 consecutive women who would normally have received intramuscular pethidine. Pain assessments at 30-minute intervals were made independently by patients and midwives. Maternal and neonatal side effects were noted. ⋯ There was no difference in the analgesia provided by the two drugs; the pattern of side effects was similar, but the incidence of vomiting was greater following meptazinol administration. The babies in the two groups were similar with respect to resuscitation received, weight gains or losses and the incidence of clinical neonatal jaundice. The most striking findings were the poor quality of pain relief experienced by both groups following parenteral analgesics and the high incidence of side effects.