Background
Patients with myotonic dystrophy may have increased sensitivity to drugs used for anesthesia. We successfully managed general anesthesia in a patient with myotonic dystrophy using a novel intravenous anesthetic, remimazolam.
Case presentation
The patient was a 46-year-old man, 169 cm in height, and weighing 60 kg. He was diagnosed with myotonic dystrophy 5 years previously. Phacoemulsification for both eyes was scheduled under general anesthesia. Anesthesia was induced with remimazolam 6 mg/kg/h for 1 min and maintained by continuous infusion at 0.25 mg/kg/h during surgery, a 1/4 dose of the standard infusion rate, as indexed by a bispectral index (BIS). Six minutes after remimazolam discontinuation, the patient opened his eyes on verbal command with sufficient spontaneous respiration. Flumazenil (0.2 mg) was administered to boost the patient’s recovery.
Conclusion
In addition to the short-acting anesthetic remimazolam, the presence of the antagonist flumazenil enabled complete recovery from anesthesia, without postoperative complications.
IntroductionThe difference between the effects of peripheral nerve block (PNB) with general anesthesia (GA) and GA alone on the patients’ postoperative clinical outcomes remains unknown. We assessed whether there is a difference in postoperative delirium and composite morbidity between patients receiving GA with PNB and GA alone using a national clinical database in Japan.MethodsWe compared the outcomes of patients receiving GA with PNB and GA alone from April 2016 to October 2019. The primary outcome was postoperative delirium, defined as a status requiring newly prescribed antipsychotic drugs or that given the code of a reimbursable disease after the surgery date. The secondary outcome was morbidity incidence as the occurrence of at least one of any of the following life-threatening complications. We conducted propensity score-matched analyses using covariates for patients who underwent any surgical procedure. We used instrumental variables and restricted the definition of postoperative delirium and subgroup for sensitivity analyses.ResultsOf 653,759 patients, 90,358 received GA-PNB and 563,401 received only GA. After 1:4 propensity score matching, 89,754 patients were included in the GA-PNB and 359,015 in the GA. The adjusted ORs for postoperative delirium and composite morbidity were 0.96 (95% CIs 0.94 to 0.99; p<0.01), 0.80 (95% CIs 0.76 to 0.83; p<0.001), respectively, for the GA-PNB concerning the GA. For sensitivity analyses, findings were also consistent with instrumental variables and subgroup analyses.DiscussionThis retrospective, nationwide cohort study demonstrated that GA-PNB was associated with a small reduction in the likelihood of postoperative delirium and a moderate reduction in the likelihood of composite morbidity.
Purpose
Ultrasound-guided supra-inguinal fascia iliaca block (SFIB) is widely used as regional anesthesia of the hip and thigh. It is difficult to judge the blocking effect and the spreading local anesthesia. We hypothesize that the effect and spread of the block could be proven objectively by a rise in the temperature. In this prospective observational study, the broad regional rise in skin temperature of twenty patients who were scheduled for hip surgery was measured using an infrared thermographic camera at multiple intervals following ultrasound-guided SFIB.
Methods
Infrared thermographic imaging of skin temperature at the femoral, obturator, and lateral femoral cutaneous nerve sites was performed before and at 5-min intervals after ultrasound-guided SFIB for up to 15-min post-injection. The primary outcomes are skin surface temperature. Sensory block was assessed immediately after the final infrared thermographic image acquisition using the cold test.
Results
Compared to pre-injection baseline, temperature increased by 1.2 °C [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.4–2.0 °C] after 5 min, 1.2 °C (95% CI 0.4–2.0 °C) after 10 min, and 0.9 °C (95% CI 0.4–2.1°C) after 15 min. The cold test response was reduced in all cases at the femoral and lateral femoral cutaneous nerve sites and in 13 cases at the obturator nerve site. The sensitivity and specificity of the temperature increase to cold loss were 96% and 63%, respectively when we defined >0°C as the clinical threshold.
Conclusions
Successful SFIB significantly enhanced skin temperature at the hip and thigh in all cases, suggesting that infrared surface thermography can be used as an objective assessment tool for adequate analgesia.
Trial registration
University Hospital Medical Information Network Clinical Trials Registry (UMIN 000037866). Registered 31 August 2019.
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