British journal of anaesthesia
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Details of current UK anaesthetic practice are unknown and were needed for interpretation of reports of accidental awareness during general anaesthesia (GA) within the 5th National Audit Project. ⋯ Anaesthesia in the UK is currently predominantly a consultant-delivered service. The low mortality rate supports the safety of UK anaesthetic care. The survey data should be valuable for planning and monitoring anaesthesia services.
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Comparative Study
Accuracy and precision of the ultrasound cardiac output monitor (USCOM 1A) in pregnancy: comparison with three-dimensional transthoracic echocardiography.
Cardiac output (CO) monitoring is helpful in the assessment of critically ill pregnant women, but invasive monitors are often unsuitable for use. We aimed to measure agreement between the non-invasive ultrasound cardiac output monitor (USCOM) and three-dimensional transthoracic echocardiography (3D-TTE) in pregnant women. ⋯ USCOM has acceptable agreement with 3D-TTE for the measurement of CO in pregnancy. The positive bias of the USCOM, particularly in the FT mode, may be due to the hyperdynamic cardiovascular state in pregnancy. We suggest using the TP mode in this patient population.
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Accidental awareness during general anaesthesia (AAGA) with recall is a potentially distressing complication of general anaesthesia that can lead to psychological harm. The 5th National Audit Project (NAP5) was designed to investigate the reported incidence, predisposing factors, causality, and impact of accidental awareness. ⋯ The NAP5 methodology may be used to assess new reports of AAGA in a standardized manner, especially for the development of an ongoing database of case reporting. This paper is a shortened version describing the protocols, methods, and data analysis from NAP5--the full report can be found at http://www.nationalauditprojects.org.uk/NAP5_home.