Articles: operative.
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Perioperative hypersensitivity reactions may be difficult to diagnose during general anesthesia. Postinduction hypotension is the most common sign but is not specific. It was recently suggested that low end-tidal carbon dioxide (ETco2) might be a marker of anaphylaxis (Ring and Messmer grades III to IV immediate hypersensitivity reactions) in hypotensive patients under mechanical ventilation. To test this hypothesis, the authors compared ETco2 in patients with a diagnosis of anaphylaxis and in patients with severe hypotension from any other cause after the induction of anesthesia. ⋯ In case of severe hypotension after anesthesia induction, a low ETco2 contributes to the diagnosis of anaphylaxis, in addition to the classical signs of perioperative immediate hypersensitivity.
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An infraclavicular catheter is a very efficient technique to provide excellent perioperative anesthesia/analgesia for upper limb surgery. However, complications can occur and are dependent on the technique used. We report the inadvertent placement of an infraclavicular catheter in the interscalene region when an ultrasound-guided infraclavicular catheter was threaded cranially. We proposed some strategies to avoid the occurrence of complications when performing this block.
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Buprenorphine is a partial agonist at mu-opioid receptors and competes for these receptors with other opioids in vitro. Whether patients on buprenorphine maintenance require high doses of opioid analgesics to attain adequate postoperative pain control has not been determined. We evaluated differences in acute postoperative opioid consumption and pain burden between patients taking buprenorphine and those taking methadone preoperatively. ⋯ Preoperative buprenorphine use was associated with >50% reduction in postoperative opioid dose requirement and a statistically significant, though clinically unimportant, reduction in acute pain burden in comparison to methadone. The study is limited by several important factors such as the exclusion of patients requiring intravenous patient-controlled analgesia, small number of patients were on higher dose of buprenorphine, and a large percentage of methadone patients were not on a stable dose of methadone yet.