Anesthesia and analgesia-related preferences and outcomes of women who have birth plans.

Introduction: This study described anesthesia and analgesia-related preferences and outcomes of women who used a birth plan for labor and birth.

Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted (N = 63). Data were abstracted from medical records, birth plans, and a follow-up survey.

Can parturients identify the midline during neuraxial block placement?

Study Objective: To determine whether parturients can reliably identify their midline during epidural or spinal needle insertion, and to determine whether parturient feedback helps the anesthesiologist successfully identify the midline.

Design: Survey instrument completed by anesthesiologists.

Setting: Labor and delivery unit of a university-based, tertiary-care hospital.

Postoperative conversion disorder in a pediatric patient.

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV (DSM IV), conversion disorder is classified as a somatoform illness and defined as an alteration or loss of physical function because of the expression of an underlying psychological ailment. This condition, previously known as hysteria, hysterical neurosis, or conversion hysteria occurs rarely, with an incidence of 11-300 cases per 100,000 people (American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders.

Complete separation of the tube from the mask during removal of a disposable laryngeal mask airway.

Purpose: To describe a complication of the disposable laryngeal mask airway (LMA).

Clinical Features: A 23-yr-old woman underwent a wide local excision of a chest wall melanoma and sentinel node biopsy under general anesthesia. During use of a single-use LMA-Unique(TM), the airway tube became completely separated from the distal mask (backplate).

Alterations in cerebrospinal fluid concentrations of somatostatin-like immunoreactivity in chronic pain patients.

Concentrations of somatostatin-like immunoreactivity in cerebrospinal fluid were significantly reduced in chronic pain patients compared to control patients without chronic pain. This difference was not influenced by demographic or clinical characteristics. Somatostatin has been shown to be a neurotransmitter in animal nociception; pharmacologic doses of this substance have moderated human pain.