Intrathecal morphine reduces blood loss during idiopathic scoliosis surgery: retrospective study of 256 pediatric cases.

Background: This retrospective cohort study was designed to assess the impact of intrathecal morphine compared with no intrathecal morphine on blood loss and on hemodynamic stability during surgery for pediatric idiopathic scoliosis correction.

Methods: A retrospective review was done of 256 anesthetic charts who underwent scoliosis surgery between January 1993 and February 2012 by the same orthopedic surgeon. 128 patients were operated on before 2003 without intrathecal morphine (NITM group) and 128 were treated later on with intrathecal morphine (ITM group).

Ropivacaine in infants and children.

Purpose Of Review: Ropivacaine is considered less toxic than bupivacaine. In addition, at the low concentrations used for providing postoperative analgesia, ropivacaine seems to produce less motor blockade than bupivacaine. These two properties are of particular interest in paediatric practice.

Prevention of emergence agitation after sevoflurane anesthesia for pediatric cerebral magnetic resonance imaging by small doses of ketamine or nalbuphine administered just before discontinuing anesthesia.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) requires long-lasting immobilization that frequently can only be provided by general anesthesia in pediatric patients. Sevoflurane provides adequate anesthesia but many patients experience emergence agitation. Small doses of ketamine and nalbuphine provide moderate sedation but their benefits have subsided at the time of emergence.

Pharmacokinetics of local anaesthetics in infants and children.

Amide local anaesthetics used for regional anaesthesia in paediatric patients are potent sodium channel blockers with marked stereospecificity, which consistently influences their action, especially their toxic action on the heart. At toxic concentrations, they induce severe arrhythmias with the potential for cardiac arrest. These agents are all bound to serum proteins, mainly to alpha(1)-acid glycoprotein (AAG), but also to human serum albumin.