Articles: general-anesthesia.
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In obstetric anaesthesia, general anaesthesia combined with endotracheal intubation, spinal anaesthesia and peridural anaesthesia is used. The main risks of general anaesthesia are: difficult intubation, aspiration of acid gastric content in non-fasting patients, depression of the fetus with narcotics and the occurrence of awareness of the mother. ⋯ The specific risks of peridural anaesthesia are: maternal hypotension, the possibility of inadvertent intravenous injection of local anaesthetics leading to cardiac and cerebral intoxication, inadvertent intrathecal application of local anaesthetics followed by total spinal block which requires reanimation and inadvertent dura perforation followed by long-lasting headache. Most anaesthesia-related maternal deaths by far occur during Caesarean section performed under general anaesthesia, but at present there is no clear evidence that the anaesthetic risk of spinal or peridural anaesthesia, on the one hand, is lower than that one of general anaesthesia, on the other.
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To evaluate wrist compression as a test to identify low radial from low systemic pressure and to see if the gradient found after cardiopulmonary bypass is also present whenever hand vascular resistance may decrease. ⋯ The systemic-radial artery pressure gradient seen at the end of cardiopulmonary bypass seems to be a phenomenon common to patients with decreased hand vascular resistance. Wrist compression decreases or abolishes the gradient in most cases. It does not produce false positives, so an increase indicates a greater aortic than radial pressure. The difference is likely to be only temporary.
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We have defined the infusion dose requirements of propofol to suppress consciousness and response to a variety of graded non-noxious and noxious stimuli in 52 unpremedicated patients aged 16-40 yr and 32 patients aged 41-65 yr. They were allocated to receive one of five loading dose-infusion schemes designed to establish stable conditions covering the range from wakefulness, through sedation, to loss of consciousness and anaesthesia. ⋯ In both groups the dose-response curves for suppression of proprioception, finger counting and perception of light touch in conscious patients were shifted to the left of the curves for loss of consciousness and eyelash reflex. Dose-response curves for noxious stimuli were shifted to the right of those for loss of consciousness.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Jan 1994
Clinical TrialThe effect of ephedrine bolus administration on left ventricular loading and systolic performance during high thoracic epidural anesthesia combined with general anesthesia.
We investigated the effect of ephedrine on left ventricular function in patients without cardiovascular disease under high thoracic epidural anesthesia combined with general anesthesia. Because the epidural block was extended to all cardiac segments, ephedrine was assumed to be deprived of its centrally mediated actions. Left ventricular (LV) function was assessed using transesophageal echocardiography. ⋯ During the second phase, ephedrine increased mean arterial pressure (MAP) from a baseline value of 62 to 87 mm Hg, EDA was restored to 19.3 cm2, and EFA and mVcfc remained above baseline (52% and 2.64 circumferences/s, respectively). ESWS was not significantly increased from baseline. We conclude that ephedrine improves left ventricular contractility, even in the presence of high thoracic epidural anesthesia, without causing relevant changes of left ventricular afterload.
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Case Reports
[Anesthesia for the intraoperative electrocorticography of patients with uncontrollable epilepsy].
For the surgical treatment of uncontrollable epilepsy, it is essential to delineate the epileptogenic focus by the use of intraoperative electrocorticography. Most general anesthetic agents, however, suppress the epileptogenic focus. Therefore, such a patient is usually kept awake during the procedure using local anesthesia. ⋯ In 2 patients, electrocorticographical focal seizure status was identified following the intraoperative electrocorticography. After the focus resection, seizure attacks were controlled only by the application of regular medical regimen in these patients. Low nitrous oxide and intermittent fentanyl administration can be recommended as a superior anesthesia technique for intraoperative electrocorticography.