A & A case reports
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Hypnosis has been proven to be a powerful tool in the management of anxiety and pain. It allows for an increase of pain threshold, which can reach the level of surgical analgesia. Recently injection of local anesthetics around the serratus muscle has been presented as an alternative to paravertebral block for cancer breast surgery. We report the successful use of hypnosis in combination with an axillary compartment block for lumpectomy and axillary lymph node dissection.
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Case Reports
Difficult Airway Management Caused by Local Anesthetic Allergy During Emergent Cesarean Delivery: A Case Report.
Difficult airway management in the gravid patient is a well-described phenomenon. We present a case of emergent cesarean delivery complicated by a "cannot intubate, cannot ventilate" scenario that was later determined to be secondary to an allergic, IgE-mediated reaction to epidurally administered local anesthetic.
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In a healthy 12-year-old female with scoliosis, prone positioning resulted in pressor-refractory cardiovascular collapse. Resumption of supine position immediately improved hemodynamics. Intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) revealed a collapsed left atrium and biventricular failure. ⋯ However, hemodynamic stabilization was restored and maintained by repositioning chest pads caudally. The patient successfully underwent a 6-hour scoliosis repair without perioperative morbidity. With this case, we aim to: (1) reintroduce awareness of this mechanical obstructive cause of reversible hypotension; (2) highlight the use of intraoperative TEE during prone hemodynamic collapse; and (3) suggest an alternative prone positioning technique if chest compression results in hemodynamic instability.
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Case Reports
Anesthetic Challenges for Posterior Spine Surgery in a Patient With Left Ventricular Assist Device: A Case Report.
With the growing rate of left ventricular assist device (LVAD) implantation, patients with end-stage heart failure and LVAD support are presenting for a variety of noncardiac surgeries. We describe a case of urgent posterior lumbar decompression for spinal stenosis in a 73-year-old man with HeartMateII LVAD, which presented significant anesthetic challenges in terms of positioning, blood loss, and coagulopathy.
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Case Reports
Incidental Cerebral Acute Subdural Hematoma After Transforaminal Lumbar Interbody Fusion: A Case Report.
We present a 68-year-old woman who developed acute cerebral subdural hematoma (SDH) early after transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion. Four hours postoperatively, the patient complained of headache and nausea. ⋯ Despite no obvious intraoperative dural damage, we suggest that cerebrospinal fluid leakage by incidental dural tear likely caused the SDH. To our knowledge, this is the first report of detected cerebral SDH immediately after spinal surgery in spite of no neurological deficits.