Anaesthesia
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Peri-operative intravenous crystalloid probably reduces the risk of postoperative nausea and vomiting.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Differential frontal alpha oscillations and mechanisms underlying loss of consciousness: a comparison between slow and fast propofol infusion rates.
Mechanisms underlying loss of consciousness following propofol administration remain incompletely understood. The objective of this study was to compare frontal lobe electroencephalography activity and brainstem reflexes during intravenous induction of general anaesthesia, in patients receiving a typical bolus dose (fast infusion) of propofol compared with a slower infusion rate. We sought to determine whether brainstem suppression ('bottom-up') predominates over loss of cortical function ('top-down'). ⋯ Alpha band power emerged several minutes after the loss of consciousness in participants allocated to the fast infusion group. Our results show a predominance of 'bottom-up' mechanisms during fast infusion rates and 'top-down' mechanisms during slow infusion rates. The underlying mechanisms by which propofol induces loss of consciousness are potentially influenced by the speed of infusion.
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Multicenter Study
Logistic early warning scores to predict death, cardiac arrest or unplanned intensive care unit re-admission after cardiac surgery.
NHS England recently mandated that the National Early Warning Score of vital signs be used in all acute hospital trusts in the UK despite limited validation in the postoperative setting. We undertook a multicentre UK study of 13,631 patients discharged from intensive care after risk-stratified cardiac surgery in four centres, all of which used VitalPACTM to electronically collect postoperative National Early Warning Score vital signs. We analysed 540,127 sets of vital signs to generate a logistic score, the discrimination of which we compared with the national additive score for the composite outcome of: in-hospital death; cardiac arrest; or unplanned intensive care admission. ⋯ Discrimination by the logistic score was significantly better than the additive score. Respective areas (95%CI) under the receiver-operating characteristic curve with 24-h and 6-h vital signs were: 0.779 (0.771-0.786) vs. 0.754 (0.746-0.761), p < 0.001; and 0.841 (0.829-0.853) vs. 0.813 (0.800-0.825), p < 0.001, respectively. Our proposed logistic Early Warning Score was better than the current National Early Warning Score at discriminating patients who had an event after cardiac surgery from those who did not.
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Pre-operative anaemia is typically diagnosed with a haemoglobin concentration < 120 g.l-1 for women and < 130 g.l-1 for men on the basis of limited evidence. This retrospective cohort study stratified women undergoing elective, major abdominal surgery based on pre-operative haemoglobin concentration: anaemic (< 120 g.l-1 ); borderline anaemic (120-129 g.l-1 ); and non-anaemic (> 130 g.l-1 ). Data from 1554 women were analysed. ⋯ However, after matched cohort analysis, these outcome differences no longer remained statistically significant. After multivariable adjustment for procedure, Charlson comorbidity index and patient age, a negative relationship between logarithmic pre-operative haemoglobin concentration and duration of stay was found (parameter estimate (standard error) -0.006 (0.003) vs. 0.003 (0.003) for a haemoglobin concentration < 130 g.l-1 vs. > 130 g.l-1 , respectively; p = 0.03); the difference in duration of stay was approximately 50% greater for women with a haemoglobin concentration of 120 g.l-1 compared with those with a haemoglobin concentration of 130 g.l-1. Although the contribution of borderline anaemia to the incidence of postoperative complications is uncertain, the current diagnostic criteria should be re-assessed.