Local and systemic immune response to surgery under balanced anaesthesia in children.

We studied perioperative changes in the immune response and compared changes in the peripheral blood with those in the wound in 20 boys (0.5-3 years) during elective inguinal surgery under balanced anaesthesia. Blood samples were drawn before premedication, immediately, and 4 or 24 h after anaesthesia.

Immune response in infants undergoing application of cast: comparison of halothane and balanced anesthesia.

Purpose: To study the immunological effects of two types of anesthesia on the immune response in infants during a minimally stressful surgical procedure.

Methods: The effects of inhalational halothane (halothane + N2O + O2, spontaneous breathing, n = 12) and conventional balanced anesthesia (thiopental + N2O + O2 + fentanyl + vecuronium, mechanical ventilation, n = 12) on immune function were measured in a crossover study in 12 infants undergoing application of casts to the lower extremity or hip joint. Leukocyte and differential counts, lymphocyte subpopulations, spontaneous lymphocyte proliferative responses as well as responses to phytohemagglutinin (PHA), concavalin A (ConA) and pokeweed mitogen (PWM), and serum cortisol concentration were measured before, immediately after and four hours after the end of anesthesia.

Contribution of non-neurologic disturbances in acute physiology to the prediction of intensive care outcome after head injury or non-traumatic intracranial haemorrhage.

Objective: To study the additional contribution of non-neurologic disturbances in acute physiology and chronic health to the prediction of intensive care outcome in patients with head injury or non-traumatic intracranial haemorrhage.

Design: A nationwide study in Finland with prospectively collected data on all adult patients admitted to intensive care after head trauma or non-traumatic intracranial haemorrhage during a 14-month period. Two-thirds of the patients were randomly selected to derive predictive models, and the remaining one third constituted the validation sample.

Prediction of outcome from intensive care after gastroenterologic emergency.

Prognostic factors determining the outcome from intensive care were studied in 952 patients admitted to 25 Finnish ICUs after gastroenterologic emergency. Logistic regression analysis was used to create predictive models based on the APACHE II-system. The models were constructed by using data from a random two-thirds of the study population and validated in the remaining independent one-third together with the original APACHE II-index.