Indian Journal of Anaesthesia最新文献

Background and aims: A quality improvement project ('Safe Anaesthesia for ALL-SEAL') was implemented to reduce preventable medication errors and drug wastage in the operating theatre (OT) of a tertiary hospital. The primary objective of this quality improvement project was to prevent the incidence of medication errors, and the secondary objective was to reduce the wastage of unused drugs.

Methods: A pre-intervention questionnaire and an audit survey were performed, and multidirectional interventions were designed post-survey. A post-intervention survey was conducted to evaluate effectiveness. The incidence of medication errors, including near misses, was assessed for root causes. Unused drugs drawn or diluted in syringes were recorded daily in each OT. The weekly drug orders and mid-week reordering frequency were also monitored. The data were reported as simple means and percentages.

Results: Ninety-eight anaesthesia care providers participated in the survey (72.4% doctors and 27.6% anaesthetic nurses). Pre-intervention, 76.1% of respondents had experienced medication errors during their practice. Common errors included misidentification of ampoules or vials (65.2%), miscalculation of dosages (65.2%), improper syringe labelling (56.5%), accidental drug omission (54.3%) and wrong prescriptions (39.1%). The main sources of errors were fatigue/overwork (80.4%) and a hectic OT environment (71.7%). Post-intervention, no incidents of medication errors were reported. In addition, there was a significant reduction in drug wastage.

Conclusions: The SEAL project positively prevented medication errors and reduced drug wastage, which should be further validated in other clinical settings.

Background and aims: The lack of a dedicated pain service catering to the postsurgical period has resulted in the origination of the pain-period gap. This has led to a resurgence of transitional pain service (TPS). Our objective was to evaluate the feasibility of TPS in pain practice among postsurgical cancer patients and its prevention of persistent postsurgical pain (PPSP), culminating in chronic pain catastrophising.

Methods: The protocol for this meta-analysis was registered in the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (ID: CRD42023407190). This systematic review included articles involving all adult cancer patients undergoing cancer-related surgery experiencing pain, involving pharmacological, non-pharmacological and interventional pain modalities after an initial systematic pain assessment by pain care providers across diverse clinical specialities, targeting multimodal integrative pain management. Meta-analysis with meta-regression was conducted to analyse the feasibility of TPS with individual subgroup analysis and its relation to pain-related patient outcomes.

Results: Three hundred seventy-four articles were evaluated, of which 14 manuscripts were included in the meta-analysis. The lack of randomised controlled trials evaluating the efficacy of TPS in preventing PPSP and pain catastrophising led to the analysis of its feasibility by meta-regression. The estimate among study variances τ² was determined and carried out along with multivariate subgroup analysis. A regression coefficient was attained to establish the correlation between the feasibility of TPS and its patient outcome measures and opioid-sparing.

Conclusion: TPS interventions carried out by multidisciplinary teams incorporating bio-physical-psychological pain interventions have resulted in its successful implementation with improved pain-related patient outcomes mitigating the occurrence of PPSP.

Background and aims: The second-generation supraglottic airway device is conventionally inserted blindly, which might result in suboptimal placement. Limited literature exists on under-vision insertion techniques, particularly in paediatric patients. The primary objective of this study was to compare the oropharyngeal leak pressure (OPLP) between the blind insertion of the LMA Blockbuster^® and the Miller laryngoscope-guided insertion in children. Secondary outcomes included the number of insertion attempts, haemodynamic disturbances, insertion time and airway complications.

Methods: This randomised controlled trial study enroled 100 patients aged 1-4 years undergoing elective surgery. Patients were randomised into blind insertion (Group A) or Miller laryngoscope-guided insertion (Group B) of the LMA Blockbuster^®. The primary outcome measure was OPLP. Insertion time, haemodynamic changes and postoperative complications were also assessed. The Chi-square, Fisher's exact and t-test were applied appropriately, with the significance level set at P < 0.05.

Results: Significantly higher mean OPLP was observed in Group B compared to Group A - 27.9 [standard deviation (SD): 1.58] cmH₂O versus 25.94 (SD: 0.63) cmH₂O [mean difference (MD): 1.96 (95% confidence interval {CI}: 1.48, 2.44; P < 0.001)]. Mean insertion time was longer in Group B, that is, 11.9 (SD: 1.91) s versus 8.7 (SD: 0.6) s [MD: 3.2 s; (95% CI: 2.63, 3.76; P < 0.001)]; however, the difference was not clinically relevant. First-attempt insertion, haemodynamic stability and postoperative complications were comparable (P > 0.05).

Conclusion: Miller laryngoscope-guided under-vision insertion of LMA Blockbuster^® improves alignment with epiglottic structures compared to blind insertion.

Background and aims: Precise airway management is vital in thoracic surgeries to ensure patient safety and optimal outcomes. Choosing the correct double-lumen tube (DLT) size is challenging, as it typically relies on height, gender and subjective experience. This study investigates using ultrasonography (USG) and computed tomography (CT) to measure cricoid cartilage diameter for objective DLT sizing.

Methods: In a randomised study, 120 adult patients undergoing elective thoracic surgery were randomised to three groups: Group A (DLT size determined by USG), Group B (DLT size determined by CT) and Group C (DLT size determined by conventional methods based on height and gender). The primary outcome variable was the appropriateness of DLT size. Secondary outcome variables were the degree of lung collapse and sore throat. Student's t-test and ꭓ² test were used to analyse continuous and dichotomous variables, respectively.

Results: DLT sizing based on cricoid cartilage diameter improved the accuracy, with inappropriate sizes found in 25% in the conventional group, 5% in the USG group and 2.5% in the CT group (P < 0.05). Lung collapse was better in the USG (excellent in 92.5%) and CT (95%) groups compared to the conventional group (70%) (P < 0.05). Moderate sore throat was higher in the conventional group (37.5%) compared to the USG (5%) and CT groups (7.5%).

Conclusion: The study demonstrates that USG- and CT-guided measurements of cricoid cartilage diameter are reliable and effective methods for determining DLT size in thoracic surgery compared to conventional methods.