Neuropathic pain is a major contributor to chronic LBP, and the LANSS pain scale is a useful tool to distinguish patients with neuropathic pain from those with nociceptive pain.

I.v. lidocaine and magnesium improved post-operative analgesia and reduced intraoperative and post-operative opioid requirements in patients undergoing LC. The improvement of quality of recovery might facilitate rapid hospital discharge.

Airway and respiratory management following non-lethal hangingPurpose: q~ review the literature on airway and respiratory management following non-lethal (suicidal) hangang and to describe the anatomy, injury and pathophysiological sequelae and their impact on patient care. Source: A IVedline literature search of English-language and English-abstracted papers for 1990-96. Keywords were: hanging; strangulation; airway obstruction; pulmonary oedema, filters were applied to limit the search to relevant citations. (i.e., keywords = pulmonary oedema; filters = postobstructive, neurogenic). C~ations were then hand-culled to obtain current and relevant papers about an unusual cohort of paaents. A hand search of the bibliographies of relevant papers supplemented the Medline search. A review of our experience at the University of Ottawa adult hospitals over the last decade was also undertaken to determine the relevance of the Irterature to our clinical experiences. Principal Findings: Most victims are young men and survwors are uncommon. Laryngo-tracheal injuries, although reported in 2,3-50% of postmortem examinations, are infrequent in survivors and have little impact on airway management. Spinal injuries are rare in survivors but should be excluded. Pulmonary complications including pulmonary oedema and I~ronchopneumonia are implicated in most in-hospital deaths. Pulmonary oedema is likely due to neurogenie factors c,r negative intrathoracic pressure. Although neurological injury determines outcome following hanging, initial neurological presentation is of limited prognostic value: a poor initial condition does not exclude a good recovery. Conclusion: Airway ~njuries severe enough to interfere with airway management are uncommon after attempted suicide by hanging. Irrespective of the initial neurological assessment, aggressive and early resuscitation to optimize cerebrai oxygenation is recommended.Objectif : PEviser ia I~Erature publiEe sur la gestion des voies a&iennes et de la respiration apt& r&hec de suicide par pendaison et dEcrire i'anatomie, les lesions et les sEquelles physiopathologiques consEcutives et leur influence sur le traitement. Source : Ure recherche sur Nledline des articles et des rEsumEs pubtiEs en langue anglaise de 1990 ,~ 1996. Les roots clEs recherchEs Etaient : pendaison ' , strangulation ; obstruction des voies aEriennes ' , oed&ne pulmonaire. Des ,,filtres,, ont E16 utilisEs pour limiter la recherche aux citations pertinentes (par ex., pour les mots des : oedEme putmonare ; les liltres postobstruction et neuro~ne). Les citations ont alors Et6 triEes ~ la main pour acquErir les articles courants et at:propriEs au sujet de cette cohorte inhabituelle de patients. Une recherche visuelle darts la bibliographie des articles i~rtinents a complEtE la recherche dans Medtine. Eexp&ience clinique accumulEe darts les hEpitaux d'adultes de runiversit6 d'Ottawa a aussi Et6 analys~e pour determiner sa concordance avec celle de la littErature. Principales constatations : La ptupart des victimes sont des ho...

Intrathecal tramadol was not different from saline in its effect on postoperative morphine requirements after TURP.