British journal of anaesthesia
-
Point-of-care gastric ultrasound is an emerging tool to assess gastric content and volume at the bedside. The examination includes both a qualitative and a quantitative component. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of an existing model for predicting gastric volume in severely obese subjects (BMI >35 kg m-2). ⋯ Our results suggest that the existing mathematical model to determine gastric fluid volume based on sonographic assessment performs well in severely obese individuals.
-
Preoperative identification of high-risk surgical patients might help to reduce postoperative morbidity and mortality. Using a patient's predicted 30 day mortality to plan postoperative high-dependency unit (HDU) care after elective colorectal surgery might be associated with reduced postoperative morbidity. ⋯ Planned postoperative critical care was associated with a lower rate of complications after elective colorectal surgery.
-
Functional imaging by thoracic electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is a non-invasive approach to continuously assess central stroke volume variation (SVV) for guiding fluid therapy. The early available data were from healthy lungs without injury-related changes in thoracic impedance as a potentially influencing factor. The aim of this study was to evaluate SVV measured by EIT (SVVEIT) against SVV from pulse contour analysis (SVVPC) in an experimental animal model of acute lung injury at different lung volumes. ⋯ EIT provides automated calculation of a dynamic preload index of fluid responsiveness (SVVEIT) that is non-invasively derived from a central haemodynamic signal. However, alterations in thoracic impedance induced by lung injury influence this method.