Current Opinion in Anesthesiology最新文献

Purpose of review: Although team-based care has been shown in many sectors to improve outcomes, very little work has been done with the thoracic surgical patient. This review article focuses on this and, extrapolating from other closely related surgical fields, teamwork in thoracic surgery will be reviewed for outcome efficacy and substance.

Recent findings: The optimal team has been shown to display behaviors that allow them to model future needs, predict disaster, be adaptable to change, and promote team cohesiveness all with a positive effect on perioperative outcome. The suboptimal team will have transactional leadership, poor communication, ineffective conflict resolution, and hold rigid beliefs about other team members.

Summary: To improve outcome, the thoracic surgical team, centered on the anesthesiologist and surgeon, will display the 'Big 5' attributes of highly effective teams. There are attributes of poor teams, which the dyad should avoid in order to increase the team's function and thus outcome.

Purpose of review: This review highlights the integration of enhanced recovery principles with temporary mechanical circulatory support associated with adult cardiac surgery.

Recent findings: Enhanced recovery elements and efforts have been associated with improvements in quality and value. Temporary mechanical circulatory support technologies have been successfully employed, improved, and the value of their proactive use to maintain hemodynamic goals and preserve long-term myocardial function is accruing.

Summary: Temporary mechanical circulatory support devices promise to enhance recovery by mitigating the risk of complications, such as postcardiotomy cardiogenic shock, organ dysfunction, and death, associated with adult cardiac surgery.

Purpose of review: This study calls attention to the necessity for increasing representation of minority groups among cardiothoracic fellowship programs.

Recent findings: Demographics in medicine are changing, with more women and varying ethnicities contributing to the physician pool. Despite this change, diversity among cardiothoracic anesthesia fellows has not mirrored this trend.

Summary: In November of 2022, medical student, anesthesia resident and cardiothoracic fellow demographics were analyzed from 2011 to 2021 to assess the changes in program diversity. Although male and female individuals have relatively similar representation in medical schools, female individuals only represent 34.8% of total US anesthesia residents. Cardiothoracic anesthesia fellowship programs continue to be male-sex dominant and white racial representation has consistently made up a majority of the total trainees. Increasing diversity amongst healthcare providers increases the likelihood of providing culturally competent care, thereby decreasing the healthcare gap in minority communities.

Purpose of review: Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) are increasingly recognized as a clinical tool for measuring and improving patient-centric care. This review provides a summary on recent advances in the use of PROs in the field of thoracic surgery.

Recent findings: PROs have been used as primary endpoints in clinical trials and observational studies evaluating clinical care pathways and quantifying the benefits of minimally invasive surgical techniques for patients undergoing lung surgery. Qualitative and quantitative research has yielded fundamental insights into which PRO domains are meaningful and valued by patients after lung surgery. Patient experience and recovery after esophagectomy have been further characterized by using PROs. New disease-specific survey tools for patients have been developed to track long-term symptoms after esophageal reconstruction. Patient satisfaction has emerged as the key metric used to gauge the patient centeredness of hospital systems.

Summary: Advances have been made in the application of PROs in multiple areas of thoracic surgery, which include lung and esophageal surgery. The growing focus on the use of PROs in clinical pathways has led to a better understanding on how to optimize patient experience.

Purpose of review: To provide an approach to perioperative fluid management for lung resection patients that incorporates the entire patient pathway in the context of international guidelines on enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS).

Recent findings: The concern with intraoperative fluid management is that giving too little or too much fluid is associated with worse outcomes after lung resection. However, it has not emerged as a key care element in thoracic ERAS programs probably due to the influence of other ERAS elements. Carbohydrate loading 2 h before surgery and the allowance of water until just prior to induction ensures the patient is both well hydrated and metabolically normal when they enter the operating room. Consequently, maintaining a euvolemic state during anesthesia can be achieved without goal-directed fluid therapy despite the recommendations of some guidelines. Intravenous fluids can be safely stopped in the immediate postoperative period.

Summary: The goal of perioperative euvolemia can be achieved with the ongoing evolution and application of ERAS principles. A focus on the pre and postoperative phases of fluid management and a pragmatic approach to intraoperative fluid management negates the need for goal-directed fluid therapy in most cases.

Purpose of review: Randomized clinical trials, now commonplace and regarded as top-tier evidence, are actually a recent development. The first randomized trial took place in 1948, just six decades ago. As anticipated from a relatively young field, rapid progress continues in response to an ever-increasing number of medical questions that demand answers. We examine evolving methodologies in cardiac anesthesia clinical trials, focusing on the transition towards larger sample sizes, increasing use of pragmatic trial designs, and the innovative adoption of real-time automated enrollment and randomization. We highlight how these changes enhance the reliability and feasibility of clinical trials.

Recent findings: Recent understanding in clinical trial methodology acknowledges the importance of large sample sizes, which increase the reliability of findings. As illustrated by P value fragility, small trials can mislead despite statistical significance. Pragmatic trials have gained prominence, offering real-world insights into the effectiveness of various treatments. Additionally, the use of real-time automated enrollment and randomization, particularly in situations where obtaining prior consent is impractical, is an important methodological advance.

Summary: The landscape of cardiac anesthesia clinical trials is rapidly evolving, with a clear trend towards large sample sizes and innovative approaches to enrollment. Recent developments enhance the quality and applicability of research findings, thus providing robust guidance to clinicians.

Purpose of review: This review article explores the application of multimodal anaesthesia in general anaesthesia, particularly in conjunction with locoregional anaesthesia, specifically focusing on the importance of EEG monitoring. We provide an evidence-based guide for implementing multimodal anaesthesia, encompassing drug combinations, dosages, and EEG monitoring techniques, to ensure reliable intraoperative anaesthesia while minimizing adverse effects and improving patient outcomes.

Recent findings: Opioid-free and multimodal general anaesthesia have significantly reduced opioid addiction and chronic postoperative pain. However, the evidence supporting the effectiveness of these approaches is limited. This review attempts to integrate research from broader neuroscientific fields to generate new clinical hypotheses. It discusses the correlation between high-dose intraoperative opioids and increased postoperative opioid consumption and their impact on pain indices and readmission rates. Additionally, it explores the relationship between multimodal anaesthesia and pain processing models and investigates the potential effects of nonpharmacological interventions on preoperative anxiety and postoperative pain.

Summary: The integration of EEG monitoring is crucial for guiding adequate multimodal anaesthesia and preventing excessive anaesthesia dosing. Furthermore, the review investigates the impact of combining regional and opioid-sparing general anaesthesia on perioperative EEG readings and anaesthetic depth. The findings have significant implications for clinical practice in optimizing multimodal anaesthesia techniques (Supplementary Digital Content 1: Video Abstract, http://links.lww.com/COAN/A96 ).

Purpose: Monitoring of vital signs at the general ward with continuous assessments aided by artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being explored in the clinical setting. This review aims to describe current evidence for continuous vital sign monitoring (CVSM) with AI-based alerts - from sensor technology, through alert reduction, impact on complications, and to user-experience during implementation.

Recent findings: CVSM identifies significantly more vital sign deviations than manual intermittent monitoring. This results in high alert generation without AI-evaluation, both in patients with and without complications. Current AI is at the rule-based level, and this potentially reduces irrelevant alerts and identifies patients at need. AI-aided CVSM identifies complications earlier with reduced staff workload and a potential reduction of severe complications.

Summary: The current evidence for AI-aided CSVM suggest a significant role for the technology in reducing the constant 10-30% in-hospital risk of severe postoperative complications. However, large, randomized trials documenting the benefit for patient improvements are still sparse. And the clinical uptake of explainable AI to improve implementation needs investigation.

Purpose of review: Anesthesia professionals work in an unpredictable, rapidly changing environment in which they are quickly diagnose and manage uncommon and life-threatening critical events. The perioperative environment has traditionally been viewed as a deterministic system in which outcomes can be predicted, but recent studies suggest that the operating room behaves more like a complex adaptive system, in which events can interact and connect with each other in unpredictable and unplanned ways.

Recent findings: The increasing complexity of the healthcare environment suggests that the complete elimination of human error is not possible. Complex clinical situations predispose to errors that are the result of high workload, decision making under stress, and poor team coordination. The theory behind complex adaptive systems differs from medicine's traditional approach to safety and highlights the importance of an institutional safety culture that encourages flexibility, adaptability, reporting and learning from errors. Instead of focusing on standardization and strict adherence to procedures, clinicians can improve safety by recognizing that unpredictable changes routinely occur in the work environment and learning how resilience can prevent adverse events.

Summary: A better understanding of automation, complexity, and resilience in a changing environment are essential steps toward the safe practice of anesthesia.

Purpose of review: Quality indicators are used to monitor the quality and safety of care in ambulatory surgery, a specialty in which major morbidity and mortality remain low. As the demand for safe and cost-effective ambulatory surgical care continues to increase, quality indicators and metrics are becoming critical tools used to provide optimal care for these patients.

Recent findings: Quality indicators are tools used by both regulatory agencies and surgical centers to improve safety and quality of ambulatory surgical and anesthetic care. These metrics are also being used to develop value-based payment models that focus on efficient, safe, and effective patient care. Patient reported outcome measures are a growing method of collecting data on the satisfaction and postoperative recovery period for ambulatory surgical patients. Monitoring of perioperative efficiency and utilization using quality metrics are important to the financial health of ambulatory surgical centers.

Summary: Quality indicators will continue to play a growing role in the monitoring of quality and safety in ambulatory surgery, especially with the trend towards value-based reimbursement models and efficient, cost-effective surgical care. Additionally, quality indicators are useful tools to monitor postoperative patient outcomes and recovery pathways and the efficiency of operating room utilization and scheduling.