American journal of therapeutics
-
Randomized Controlled Trial
Role of Preemptive Gabapentin on Postoperative Analgesia After Infraumbilical Surgeries Under Subarachnoid Block-A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled, Double-Blind Study.
Preemptive use of gabapentin might accelerate recovery by reducing acute post-inguinal herniorrhaphy pain and opioid requirement being an analgesic. ⋯ Preemptive gabapentin is opioid sparing to control postoperative pain with anxiolysis and sedation. We found the optimal dose to be 400 mg for gabapentin. However, increasing dose from 400 to 1200 mg does not increase its efficacy as analgesic but with higher adverse effects.
-
Opioid-induced hyperalgesia (OIH) is a phenomenon that causes an increased pain sensitization and perception of pain to noxious stimuli secondary to opioid exposure. While this clinical effect has been described in the surgical setting, it is unclear if OIH occurs in the nonsurgical setting. ⋯ Most included studies identified OIH as a significant outcome within the nonsurgical setting. However, due to conflicting conclusions and various limitations, the clinical impact of OIH could not be assessed. Clinicians should monitor for effects of OIH in the nonoperative setting because there is insufficient evidence from the available literature to conclude that OIH is consistently observed in this setting.
-
Acute pulmonary embolism (PE) requires rapid diagnosis and early and appropriate treatment, often under conditions of hemodynamic instability. The therapeutic strategy should optimally integrate the therapeutic arsenal in a multidisciplinary but unitary approach. ⋯ Nowadays, evidence and ideas have been gathered that can significantly improve the outcome of patients with PE with varying degrees of severity, remaining to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of this advanced therapeutic approach.
-
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in special circumstances includes the emergency intervention for special causes, special environments, and special patients. Special causes cover the potential reversible causes of cardiac arrest that must be identified or excluded during any resuscitation act. The special environments section includes recommendations for the treatment of cardiac arrest occurring in specific locations: cardiac surgery, catheterization laboratory, dialysis unit, dental surgery, commercial airplanes or air ambulances, playing field, difficult environment (eg, drowning, high altitude, avalanche, and electrical injuries) or mass casualty incident. CPR for special patients gives guidance for the patients with severe comorbidities (asthma, heart failure with ventricular assist devices, neurological disease, and obesity) and pregnant women or older people. ⋯ In special circumstances, ALS guidelines require modification and special attention for causes, environment, and patient particularities, with specific therapeutic intervention concomitant with standard ALS.
-
Variability in sedation may increase the incidence of delirium and mortality, as well as increased intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital lengths of stay (LOS), despite mean Richmond Agitation Sedation Scale (RASS) scores at goal. Coefficient of variation (CV) can be used to represent variability with a higher ratio indicating increased variability. ⋯ Medical ICU patients with delirium had a higher CV in RASS compared with patients without delirium, suggesting that greater variability in sedation may increase the incidence of delirium. Patients with delirium also had a greater duration of MV and a trend toward longer ICU LOS.