Emergence Delirium: Can Corticosteroids Contribute to It?

We report a case of emergence delirium after a propofol-based sedation for a renal biopsy in a teenager patient who had received high-dose and long-term corticosteroid treatment. Corticosteroid treatment is proposed as a possible risk factor for emergence delirium, although controlled studies are needed to assess this relationship. Although treatment for emergence delirium has not been well established, as described with steroid-induced psychiatric symptoms, antipsychotics could be a good therapeutic option.

Distal catheter lengthening in pediatric patients with hydrocephalus using a guidewire-assisted technique.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the lengthening or replacement of the peritoneal catheter in a ventriculoperitoneal shunt by using a simple guidewire-assisted technique. Here we report on our experience with this methodology, its indications, caveats, and contraindications.

Methods: A prospective study was performed in 59 consecutively shunted children who required elective lengthening of the peritoneal catheter (25 females and 34 males, mean 10.

Characterization of the Ionic Profile of the Extracellular Space of the Injured and Ischemic Brain: A Microdialysis Study.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) and ischemic stroke cause a variable disruption of ionic homeostasis and massive ionic fluxes with subsequent osmotic water movement across the cells that causes edema, brain swelling, and deformation of the damaged tissue. Although cerebral microdialysis (CMD) has been used to study the brain neurochemistry, the ionic profiles of brain interstitial space fluid have rarely been reported in humans. We studied the ionic profile in injured areas of the brain by using CMD.

Brain microdialysis as a tool to explore the ionic profile of the brain extracellular space in neurocritical patients: a methodological approach and feasibility study.

Our aim is to determine whether the ionic concentration in brain microdialysate enables calculations of the actual Na(+), K(+), and Cl(-) concentrations in vitro and whether this method can be applied to determine the ionic concentrations in the brain extracellular fluid. We designed an experiment using CMA-71 probes (M Dialysis, Stockholm, Sweden) and the standard conditions used in a clinical setting. Nine CMA-71 probes were inserted in different matrices and perfused with mock cerebrospinal fluid containing 3% albumin at the standard infusion rate used in the clinical setting (0.