An audit of acute pain service in Central, Saudi Arabia.

Objective: A retrospective analysis of acute pain service (APS) was performed to look at the epidural and patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) with respect to their indications, duration and quality of pain control, dosage regimen and common side effects.

Methods: This study was conducted in the Armed Forces Hospital, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. All APS monitoring forms, from the year 1994 to 2003 were collected.

Effects of a simple protocol on infective complications in intensive care unit patients undergoing percutaneous dilatational tracheostomy.

In our intensive care unit we monitored infection in 228 patients who underwent percutaneous dilatational tracheostomy (PDT). In the first phase of the study 128 PDTs were performed during a 33-month period and there were 41 infection complications (nosocomial pneumonia, bacteremia with sepsis, and septic shock) in the perioperative period (immediately prior to and for 5 days after PDT). A significant risk factor among patients with nosocomial pneumonia was empirical administration of inappropriate antibiotics, compared to appropriate antibiotics (34% versus 4%, p < 0.