Article Notes
It is interesting that pain and analgesia topics so strongly dominate this list. It gives the impression that pain relief for the neonate and child was not a priority more than 30 years ago.
One of the early papers that lit the fire under the pro-periop beta-blocker camp. Note that the legitimacy of Poldermans' DECREASE trials has been called into question due to scientific misconduct (read more)
Results from more recent trials, such as POISE greatly undermine Poldermans' rather extraordinary findings in this paper.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" — Carl Sagan
The legitimacy of Poldermans' DECREASE trials, in particular DECREASE IV, has been called into question due to scientific misconduct.
Results from other trials, such as POISE greatly undermine the argument for both benefit and safety of starting perioperative beta-blockade, even in high-risk patients. Read more about Poldermans and scientific misconduct.
Kinda interesting, but not too surprising given that their technique really just increases the catheterisation threshold (albeit individualized for each patient). Nonetheless the practicality and cost-effectiveness of patients pre-measuring their MBC is questionable. To avoid 27 unnecessary catheterizations they measured 931 pre-operative MBC's.
I find the existence of this study perplexing. This meta-analysis appears to simply confirm basic neuromuscular pharmacology and age-related cardiovascular changes. The unanswered question is why are they so interested in using mivacurium anyway?
I conclude that good conditions for tracheal intubation are more likely when using a muscle relaxant other than mivacurium.