British journal of anaesthesia
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Recent advances in imaging have improved our understanding of the role of the brain in painful conditions. Discoveries of morphological changes have been made in patients with chronic pain, with little known about the functional consequences when they occur in areas associated with 'number-sense'; thus, it can be hypothesized that chronic pain impairs this sense. ⋯ Audit data suggest patients with chronic pain interpret numbers differently from acute pain sufferers. Support is gained by experiments indicating impaired number sense in one-third of chronic pain patients. These results cast doubts on the appropriateness of the use of visual analogue and numeric rating scales in chronic pain in clinics and research.
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Clonidine is a useful analgesic-sedative agent; however, few data exist regarding its use in infants after congenital heart disease surgery. We thus aimed to assess the absorption and safety of enterally administered clonidine in this setting. ⋯ Early postoperative enteral clonidine produces favourable haemodynamic profiles and therapeutic plasma concentrations in the majority of cardiac surgical infants; however, the time to achieve this can be erratic. Thus, parenteral administration may be preferable if rapid analgo-sedative effects are needed.
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Letter Multicenter Study
Multicentre evaluation of perioperative red blood cells transfusions in China.
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Activation of the nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) pathway is central to the pathogenesis of lung injury and inflammation. We determined whether targeted overexpression of inhibitor-κBα (IκBα) in the lung could decrease the severity of ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI). ⋯ Inhibition of pulmonary NF-κB activity by IκBα overexpression reduced the severity of VILI in a rat model.