Body temperature and diaphoresis disturbances in a patient with arachnoiditis.

Arachnoiditis, produced by different causes, is an inflammation of the sac containing the spinal cord and nerve roots. Patients with this disease have severe low back and leg pain, sweating and low grade fever. This case had aberrant skin temperature and sweating in different parts of the body.

Leg edema from intrathecal opiate infusions.

Despite the increasing popularity of intrathecal infusions to treat patients with long-term non-cancer-related pain, this therapy is not without serious side-effects. Five out of 23 patients who had intrathecal infusions of opiates for longer than 24 months developed leg and feet edema. As predisposing factors, cardiovascular disease, deep venous thrombosis, peripheral vascular disease, and venous stasis of the lower extremities were considered.

Closed circuit anesthesia in infants and children.

A closed-system low-flow technique with enflurane, halothane, or isoflurane as the sole anesthetic was used in three groups of ten children each. Anesthesia was induced by injection into the expiratory limb of a priming standard dose of the liquid anesthetic, followed by additional doses at 15, 30, 60, and 90 sec, and 2, 3, and 4 min. Further injections following the "square root of time" sequence were used for maintenance.