British journal of anaesthesia
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Does a postoperative visit increase patient satisfaction with anaesthesia care?
Patient satisfaction with anaesthesia is unchanged by post-operative anaesthetist visit.
pearl -
There is a need for a bedside functional residual capacity (FRC) measurement method that performs well in intensive care patients during many modes of ventilation including controlled, assisted, spontaneous, and mixed. We developed a modified multiple breath nitrogen washout method for FRC measurement that relies on end-tidal gas fractions and alveolar tidal volume measurements as inputs but does not require the traditional measurements of volume of nitrogen or oxygen. Using end-tidal measurements, not volume, reduces errors from signal synchronization. This study was designed to assess the accuracy, precision, and repeatability of the proposed FRC system in subjects with variable ventilation patterns including some spontaneous effort. ⋯ The modified multiple breath nitrogen washout method for FRC measurement provides improved precision and equivalent accuracy and repeatability compared with existing methods during ventilation with variable ventilation patterns. Further study of the novel N₂ washout method is needed.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Thoracic epidural analgesia or patient-controlled local analgesia for radical retropubic prostatectomy: a randomized, double-blind study.
Postoperative pain after radical retropubic prostatectomy is moderate to severe. The primary aim of this study was to assess whether intra-abdominal local anaesthetics provide similar analgesia compared with thoracic epidural analgesia (TEA). ⋯ TEA provides superior postoperative pain relief with better preservation of expiratory muscle strength compared with PCLA.