British journal of anaesthesia
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Clinical Trial
Use of the Nexfin™ device to detect acute arterial pressure variations during anaesthesia induction.
Standard non-invasive arterial pressure (AP) measurements are discontinuous. By providing non-invasive beat-to-beat AP measurements, Nexfin™ might limit duration of intraoperative hypotension and hypertension. We assessed the ability of Nexfin™ to detect AP variations by comparing its trending ability with invasive AP monitoring. ⋯ NCT01658631.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Tapentadol potentiates descending pain inhibition in chronic pain patients with diabetic polyneuropathy.
Tapentadol is an analgesic agent for treatment of acute and chronic pain that activates the µ-opioid receptor combined with inhibition of neuronal norepinephrine reuptake. Both mechanisms are implicated in activation of descending inhibitory pain pathways. In this study, we investigated the influence of tapentadol on conditioned pain modulation (CPM, an experimental measure of endogenous pain inhibition that gates incoming pain signals as a consequence of a preceding tonic painful stimulus) and offset analgesia (OA, a test in which a disproportionally large amount of analgesia becomes apparent upon a slight decrease in noxious heat stimulation). ⋯ The study was registered at trialregister.nl under number NTR2716.
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Letter Comparative Study
Evaluation of acoustic respiration rate monitoring after extubation in intensive care unit patients.
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We and others have previously demonstrated that the μ-opioid receptor (MOR) is overexpressed in several human malignancies. There is a seven-fold increase in MOR in cell lines of human lung cancer. In animal models, overexpression of MOR promotes tumour growth and metastasis. We, therefore, examined whether MOR expression is increased in metastatic lung cancer. ⋯ The association between the expression of MOR and the progression of the tumour is consistent with the hypothesis of a direct effect of MOR on cancer progression.
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Metastatic breast and colon cancer cells express neonatal and adult splice variants of NaV1.5 voltage-activated Na(+) channels (VASCs). Block of VASCs inhibits cell invasion. Local anaesthetics used during surgical tumour excision inhibit VASC activity on nociceptive neurones providing regional anaesthesia. Inhibition of VASCs on circulating metastatic cancer cells may also be beneficial during the perioperative period. However, ropivacaine, frequently used to provide analgesia during tumour resection, has not been tested on colon cancer cell VASC function or invasion. ⋯ Ropivacaine is a potent inhibitor of both NaV1.5 channel activity and metastatic colon cancer cell invasion, which may be beneficial during surgical colon cancer excision.