British journal of anaesthesia
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The impact of opioid analgesic use before cancer diagnosis on survival in patients with chronic pain is unclear. Therefore, we designed a propensity score-matched population-based cohort study to compare overall and cancer-related survival of patients with chronic pain who received long-term opioid analgesic treatment with that of those who did not receive such treatment. ⋯ Long-term opioid analgesic use before cancer diagnosis might be associated with poor overall survival in patients with chronic pain compared with such patients who did not receive long-term opioid analgesics.
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Editorial Comment
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet: defining patient safety-related terminology.
The definitions of terms related to iatrogenic harm and the potential for iatrogenic harm (e.g. error, medication error, near miss) in the anaesthesia literature are imprecise and variable, resulting in wide discrepancy in conclusions about their rates and potential solutions. Clarification of these terms is both critical and difficult: a concerted effort to achieve expert consensus is warranted.
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Editorial Comment
Preoperative anaemia in cardiac surgery: preoperative assessment, treatment and outcome.
Preoperative anaemia is common and associated with increased postoperative morbidity and mortality after cardiac surgery. These findings are supported by a large Dutch cohort study including >35 000 patients published in this issue of the British Journal of Anaesthesia. Timely diagnosis and preoperative anaemia treatment seem to be reasonable targets for perioperative risk stratification and modification. However, implementation of anaemia therapy into clinical routines remains challenging, and evidence for improved outcome is currently limited.