British journal of anaesthesia
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Syringe infusion pumps are used for the precise continuous administration of intravenous drugs. Their compliance and mechanical deficiencies have been found to cause considerable start-up delays, flow irregularities during vertical displacement, as well extensive delays of occlusion alarms at low infusion rates. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of several modern syringe infusion pumps at low infusion rates and the impact on drug concentration. ⋯ Problems with the performance of syringe infusion pump assemblies can have considerable impact on plasma drug concentration when highly concentrated short-acting cardiovascular drugs are administered at low flow rates. The problems, which affected all assemblies tested, are mainly related to the functional principle of syringe infusion pumps and will only partially be solved by incremental improvements of existing equipment.
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Observational Study
Predicting acute postoperative pain by the Qnox score at the end of surgery: a prospective observational study.
The QNox score (Quantium Medical S.L., distributed by Fresenius Kabi) has recently been introduced as a tool to quantify intraoperative analgesia. Being based on the analysis of electroencephalographic data, QNox is distinctly different to other methods of nociception monitoring that rely almost entirely on the assessment of sympathetic activity. However, there are currently no published data to validate use of QNox in a clinical setting. We investigated the value of pre-arousal QNox data at the end of surgery for prediction of acute postoperative pain in the PACU. ⋯ ACTRN12618001662257.