British journal of anaesthesia最新文献

With an ageing world population and increasing prevalence, heart failure is increasingly frequent as a comorbidity in operative patients, and its accurate preoperative diagnosis is essential to improve postoperative prognosis in patients undergoing noncardiac surgery. Use of electronic health records to assist in the accuracy of diagnosis and definition of an adjudicated heart failure reference standard could help guide intraoperative practice and improve outcomes in patients with heart failure.

Operating theatres are steeply hierarchical, and yet the hierarchy between surgeons and anaesthetists is unclear, even blurry. Both the steep hierarchy and the blurriness at the top can present a risk to patient safety through inhibiting speaking up with concerns and negotiating safe patient care. A recent study in the British Journal of Anaesthesia explores hierarchy in the surgeon-anaesthesia dyad in China, in particular, the effect of increased seniority gap between surgeons and anaesthetists on anaesthesia-related adverse outcomes. There is very limited information on hierarchy in the surgeon-anaesthetist dyad despite its pivotal importance for patient outcomes. The study prompts us to confront hierarchy in operating theatres and to address its negative effects. This might include explicit whole-team reflections on the hierarchies that divide us, working to overcome divisions through identifying our common values and goals in patient care, and building shared decision-making into our organisational structures and patient care processes so that they no longer reinforce historical hierarchies but rather reflect the needs and realities of modern healthcare.

Background: Total hip replacement surgery is performed to improve quality of life (QoL). We explored the association between multimorbidity and change in QoL after total hip replacement.

Methods: Analysis of patients included in the NHS England hip replacement Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) database with complete preoperative from 3 to 6 months postoperative EQ-5D QoL data from April 2013 to March 2018. Multimorbidity was defined as two or more chronic diseases excluding arthritis. The primary outcome measure was change in QoL using the Pareto Classification of Health Change. We compared QoL change for patients with and without multimorbidity and those with no multimorbidity using multivariable modelling. Data are presented as odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval or n (%).

Results: Of 216,191 patients, we included 178,129 (82.4%) patients with complete data. Most patients 63,327 (35.6%) were 70-79 yr of age, and 98,513 (55.3%) were women. Multimorbidity was present in 38,384 patients (21.6%). QoL improved after surgery for 149,774 (84.1%) patients, remained unchanged for 10,219 (5.7%) patients, and became worse after surgery for 7289 (4.1%) patients. QoL changes were mixed (at least one QoL domain improved and at least one deteriorated) for 10,847 (6.1%) patients. Poor QoL outcomes (unchanged/mixed/worse) were more likely for patients with multimorbidity (OR 1.53 [1.49-1.58]).

Conclusions: Hip replacement surgery improves QoL. However, patients with multimorbidity are less likely to experience these benefits. Poor QoL outcomes became more frequent as the number of comorbid diseases increased. These data should inform shared decision-making conversations around joint replacement surgery.

Background: In infants and children, postoperative respiratory complications are leading causes of perioperative morbidity, mortality, and increased healthcare utilisation. We aimed to develop a novel score for prediction of postoperative respiratory complications in paediatric patients (SPORC for children).

Methods: We analysed data from paediatric patients (≤12 yr) undergoing surgery in New York and Boston, USA for score development and external validation. The primary outcome was postoperative respiratory complications within 30 days after surgery, defined as respiratory infection, respiratory failure, aspiration pneumonitis, pneumothorax, pleural effusion, bronchospasm, laryngospasm, and reintubation. Data from Children's Hospital at Montefiore were used to create the score by stepwise backwards elimination using multivariate logistic regression. External validation was conducted using a separate cohort of children who underwent surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital for Children.

Results: The study included data from children undergoing 32,187‬ surgical procedures, where 768 (2.4%) children experienced postoperative respiratory complications. The final score consisted of 11 predictors, and showed discriminatory ability in development, internal, and external validation cohorts with areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.85 (95% confidence interval: 0.83-0.87), 0.84 (0.80-0.87), and 0.83 (0.80-0.86), respectively.

Conclusion: SPORC is a novel validated score for predicting the likelihood of postoperative respiratory complications in children that can be used to predict postoperative respiratory complications in infants and children.

Etomidate, an intravenous hypnotic used for anaesthesia and critical care, is known for its undesirable side effects, including pain on injection, myoclonus, and adrenocortical depression. Despite its continued clinical use because of its haemodynamic stability and rapid onset and offset of effect, alternatives like propofol, ketamine, and remimazolam offer fewer drawbacks. Recent efforts to improve etomidate through chemical modifications, such as methoxyethyl etomidate hydrochloride (ET-26), have shown limited success, with persistent issues like involuntary muscle movements and adrenocortical suppression. We suggest that it might be time to move on from etomidate and focus on developing new anaesthetic agents.

Background: Postoperative delirium (POD) and postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) are common after noncardiac surgery. Postsurgical pain is frequent and can persist as chronic postsurgical pain (CPSP). The association between postsurgical pain and POD or POCD is biologically plausible. We conducted this systematic review to evaluate the association between acute postsurgical pain or CPSP and POD or POCD in adults undergoing noncardiac surgery.

Methods: We followed Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses. We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane, CINAHL and PSYCHINFO up to May 2023. We included cohort, case-control, and cross-sectional studies of any language. Pairs of reviewers independently screened studies, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias using the CLARITY tool and the Joanna Briggs Institute checklist. We assessed the certainty of evidence using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation approach. Where possible, we conducted random-effects meta-analyses to summarise our findings.

Results: We analysed 30 studies (>9000 participants) that assessed the association between acute postoperative pain and POD/POCD. Dose-response meta-analyses found that postoperative pain intensity was associated with occurrence of POD (adjusted relative risk [aRR]/unit of pain intensity: 1.26; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.17-1.35; low certainty of evidence) and risk of developing POD (aRR/unit of pain intensity: 1.18; 95% CI: 1.08-1.30; low certainty of evidence). There was very low certainty of evidence regarding the association between postoperative pain and POCD. No studies assessed the association between CPSP and POCD. Residual confounding and substantial methodological variability between studies prevented pooling data from many of the included studies and lowered certainty of evidence.

Conclusions: Dose-response meta-analyses found that postoperative pain intensity was associated with occurrence of and risk of developing POD.

Systematic review protocol: PROSPERO-CRD42021192105.

Background: The accurate diagnosis of heart failure (HF) before major noncardiac surgery is frequently challenging. The impact of diagnostic accuracy for HF on intraoperative practice patterns and clinical outcomes remains unknown.

Methods: We performed an observational study of adult patients undergoing major noncardiac surgery at an academic hospital from 2015 to 2019. A preoperative clinical diagnosis of HF was defined by keywords in the preoperative assessment or a diagnosis code. Medical records of patients with and without HF clinical diagnoses were reviewed by a multispecialty panel of physician experts to develop an adjudicated HF reference standard. The exposure of interest was an adjudicated diagnosis of heart failure. The primary outcome was volume of intraoperative fluid administered. The secondary outcome was postoperative acute kidney injury (AKI).

Results: From 40 659 surgeries, a stratified subsample of 1018 patients were reviewed by a physician panel. Among patients with adjudicated diagnoses of HF, those without a clinical diagnosis (false negatives) more commonly had preserved left ventricular ejection fractions and fewer comorbidities. Compared with false negatives, an accurate diagnosis of HF (true positives) was associated with 470 ml (95% confidence interval: 120-830; P=0.009) lower intraoperative fluid administration and lower risk of AKI (adjusted odds ratio:0.39, 95% confidence interval 0.18-0.89). For patients without adjudicated diagnoses of HF, non-HF was not associated with differences in either fluids administered or AKI.

Conclusions: An accurate preoperative diagnosis of heart failure before noncardiac surgery is associated with reduced intraoperative fluid administration and less acute kidney injury. Targeted efforts to improve preoperative diagnostic accuracy for heart failure may improve perioperative outcomes.