Local Anesthesia Thoracoscopy with versus without Midazolam: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Medical thoracoscopy is the gold standard for the diagnosis of pleural diseases. To date, no consensus exists regarding the choice of sedative and analgesic agents in patients undergoing local anesthetic thoracoscopy (LAT), and questions are raised as to whether sedatives may add to respiratory side effects.

Objective: The aim of the study was to test the hypothesis that administration of midazolam associated with lidocaine versus lidocaine alone in patients with LAT adds to respiratory side effects.

Gaussian Process Domain Experts for Modeling of Facial Affect.

Most of existing models for facial behavior analysis rely on generic classifiers, which fail to generalize well to previously unseen data. This is because of inherent differences in source (training) and target (test) data, mainly caused by variation in subjects' facial morphology, camera views, and so on. All of these account for different contexts in which target and source data are recorded, and thus, may adversely affect the performance of the models learned solely from source data.

Joint Facial Action Unit Detection and Feature Fusion: A Multi-conditional Learning Approach.

Automated analysis of facial expressions can benefit many domains, from marketing to clinical diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders. Facial expressions are typically encoded as a combination of facial muscle activations, i.e.

Anesthesia management of a patient with left ventricular assist device for emergency open appendectomy: a case report.

Objective: The objective of this case report is to describe the management of anesthesia of a patient with an LVAD that underwent an emergency open appendectomy. Literature regarding emergency anesthesia management of such patients is still limited. A search in the PubMed engine with the keywords "LVAD appendectomy anesthesia management" revealed no results.

Lack of significant intraoperative coagulopathy in patients undergoing cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) indicates that epidural anaesthesia is a safe option.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the fluctuations of coagulation parameters during cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) and confirm beyond doubt that epidural anaesthesia is safe with this type of operations.

Materials And Methods: This is a prospective clinical study of consecutive patients who had cytoreductive surgery and HIPEC. An epidural catheter was inserted into all patients.

Hemodynamic Monitoring During Heated Intraoperative Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy Using the FloTrac/Vigileo System.

Cytoreductive surgery with HIPEC has provided a chance for long-term survival in selected patients. However, perioperative management remains a challenge for the anesthesiology team. The aim of this study was to evaluate the changes in hemodynamic parameters during hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) using the FloTrac/Vigileo system.

Early hemodynamic effects after extended liver radiofrequency ablation.

Background: The purpose of the present study was to assess early intestinal and systemic hemodynamic effects after extended radiofrequency ablation (RFA) of the liver in terms of investigating their potential contribution to gut barrier disruption.

Materials And Methods: Ten rabbits were assigned to two groups of five animals each and were subjected to either 30% liver RFA (group RFA-1) or sham operation (group sham-1). Blood flow rate at the superior mesenteric artery (SMA) was monitored for 90 min after operation.

Discriminative shared Gaussian processes for multiview and view-invariant facial expression recognition.

Images of facial expressions are often captured from various views as a result of either head movements or variable camera position. Existing methods for multiview and/or view-invariant facial expression recognition typically perform classification of the observed expression using either classifiers learned separately for each view or a single classifier learned for all views. However, these approaches ignore the fact that different views of a facial expression are just different manifestations of the same facial expression.

Cortisol and perioperative period. Could be certified any correlation?

Aim: The purpose of this study is to investigate the correlation of general, epidural or spinal anesthesia on fluctuations of the perioperative cortisol concentrations.

Material And Methods: Seventy five (75)--ASA physical status I, II--patients who were scheduled to undergo a medium severity surgery with general, spinal and epidural anesthesia, were enrolled in this study. These patients were divided in three groups.

Local infiltrative anesthetic effect of tramadol compared to lidocaine for excision of cutaneous lesions: pilot randomized, double-blind clinical study.

Background: In this double-blind, randomized study, the efficacy of tramadol, an atypical opioid, was tested versus lidocaine in excision of cutaneous lesions of the face.

Methods: Eighty-eight patients were randomly assigned to receive either 2 mg/kg tramadol 2% plus adrenaline 1:200,000 (group T, n  =  46) or 3 mg/kg lidocaine 2% plus adrenaline 1:200,000 (group L, n  =  42) for excision of cutaneous lesions. Pain at the injection site, 2 and 20 minutes postinjection and 3, 6, and 12 hours postoperatively, was monitored on a 0 to 10 numerical rating scale (NRS).

Adenocarcinoma in pulmonary sequestration.

A 67-year-old male smoker presented with hemoptysis and recurrent pneumonia. Chest computed tomography showed an emphysematous cyst and air-fluid level cavities in the left lower lobe. A left lower lobectomy was performed.

Coronary artery bypass surgery in a patient with Kartagener syndrome: a case report and literature review.

Kartagener syndrome consists of congenital bronchiectasis, sinusitis, and total situs inversus in half of the patients. A patient diagnosed with Kartagener syndrome was referred to our department due to 3-vessel coronary disease. An off-pump coronary artery bypass operation was performed using both internal thoracic arteries and a saphenous vein graft.

Long-term antiplatelet treatment for innominate vein aneurysm.

Aneurysms of thoracic veins are rare lesions and their therapeutic management is not clearly determined. We present a 60-year old man with an asymptomatic right innominate vein aneurysm. The patient had been operated on 10 years ago for coronary artery bypass and was under antiplatelet treatment.

One-lung ventilation and HIF1alpha expression in lung cancer and pneumothorax.

Background/aim: A prospective study was designed to investigate the effects of anesthesia, particularly that of the one-lung ventilation procedure (OLV), on the expression of hypoxia-inducible factor 1alpha (HIF1alpha) in patients with lung carcinomas and pneumothorax.

Materials And Methods: The immunohistochemical expression of HIF1alpha was studied in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues from 60 patients who had undergone thoracic surgery for lung cancer (n=48) or pneumothorax (n=12) under OLV general anesthesia.

Results: There was a significant, and rather unexpected, association of HIF1alpha expression with high body mass index (BMI) (p=0.

Respiratory muscle strength and lung function in patients undergoing medical thoracoscopy.

Background: Medical thoracoscopy (MT) is a procedure considered as minimally invasive. The safety of the procedure has been questioned recently in fragile patients, but no explanation of the pathophysiologic mechanism has been given. Although MT is applied by respiratory physicians who are also dealing with patients with impairment of lung function, it is surprising that there are no data concerning lung mechanics and function in this patient population.

Spinal metastasis of glioblastoma multiforme: an uncommon suspect?

Study Design: Case report.

Objective: To report a case and review the literature on glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) with drop-like metastasis to the spine.

Summary Of Background Data: GBM constitutes the most common adult malignant brain tumor with poor prognosis.

Variations in arterial blood pressure are associated with parallel changes in FlowTrac/Vigileo-derived cardiac output measurements: a prospective comparison study.

Introduction: The reliability of autocalibrated pressure waveform analysis by the FloTrac-Vigileo(R) (FTV) system for the determination of cardiac output in comparison with intermittent pulmonary arterial thermodilution (IPATD) is controversial. The present prospective comparison study was designed to determine the effects of variations in arterial blood pressure on the reliability of the FTV system in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG).

Methods: Comparative measurements of cardiac output by FTV (derived from a femoral arterial line; software version 1.

The relationship between urotensin II plasma immunoreactivity and left ventricular filling pressures in coronary artery disease.

The role of urotensin II (U-II)--a vasoactive, mitogenic, and inotropic, peptide--in the pathophysiology of heart failure is controversial. The present study explores the relationship between plasma U-II immunoreactivity (U-IIIR) and hemodynamics in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). Thirty-six patients with CAD-3 undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) and 36 medical patients (MED group) with CAD-1 to CAD-3 during right heart catheterization were studied.

Comparison of general and spinal anesthesia and their influence on hemostatic markers in patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty.

Study Objective: To evaluate the profile of molecular hemostatic markers in patients receiving either spinal or balanced general anesthesia for total hip arthroplasty.

Design: Open, randomized, observational study.

Setting: Orthopedic unit and central laboratory of a university hospital.

Bronchial stenting and high-frequency percussive ventilation treatment of descending aortic aneurysm-induced atelectasis of the left lung.

This case report shows that atelectasis of the left lung-induced by extrinsic compression of the left main bronchus by an aortic aneurysm and persisting despite aggressive conservative treatment-may be effectively treated by bronchial stenting and high-frequency percussive ventilation.

Lung protection during total cardiopulmonary bypass by isolated lung perfusion: preliminary results of a novel perfusion strategy.

Background: The present pilot study was conducted to evaluate the effect of isolated short-term lung perfusion during cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) on inflammatory response and oxygenation.

Methods: A total of 24 patients undergoing elective cardiac surgery with routine CPB were prospectively assigned to three groups. Group I (n = 7), control subjects receiving neither lung perfusion nor ultrafiltration; group II (n = 9), patients undergoing lung perfusion; and group III (n = 8), patients undergoing lung perfusion plus ultrafiltration.

[Intraoperative blood requirements and allogeneic blood transfusion in cardioanesthesia. Data analysis of 7729 patients in 12 cardiac surgical clinics].

Unlabelled: Allogeneic blood requirements in cardiac surgery shows a wide variation even for comparable procedures. The aim of the present study was to compare the intraoperative allogeneic blood requirement in defined cardiac operations among 12 cardiac centers in Germany.

Method: A data set with 25 variables concerning the intraoperative course in adult cardiac patients with myocardial revascularization, valve replacement (aortic or/and mitral valve) or combined procedures was distributed to the participating centers.

Fibrinolysis-adjusted perioperative low-dose aprotinin reduces blood loss in bypass operations.

Background: Postoperative bleeding still remains a serious problem in bypass surgery. This study evaluated fibrinolysis and perioperative low-dose antifibrinolytic regimens adjusted to the time course of fibrinolysis.

Methods: In a prospective, randomized study of 42 patients undergoing bypass grafting, patients received low-dose aprotinin (group A; n = 14) or low-dose tranexamic acid (group TA; n = 14) intraoperatively and postoperatively, respectively, with no antifibrinolytics for comparison (group C; n = 14).

[A new probe holding device for continuous bilateral measurements of blood flow velocity in basal brain vessels].

The clinical relevance of transcranial Doppler sonography for the evaluation of cerebral perfusion and cerebrovascular regulatory mechanisms, as well as for the registration of embolic events, has increased considerably as a technique of non-invasive monitoring. The continuous measurement of blood flow velocities in two different vessel segments, either ipsilateral or contralateral, is limited by intricate probe fixation and positioning for optimal insonation of the vessel on the one hand. On the other hand probes are displaced frequently during anaesthesiological measures, so that continuous registration during induction of anaesthesia is not always guaranteed.