Succinylcholine for Emergency Airway Rescue in Class B Ambulatory Facilities: The Society for Ambulatory Anesthesia Position Statement.

Procedures in class B ambulatory facilities are performed exclusively with oral or IV sedative-hypnotics and/or analgesics. These facilities typically do not stock dantrolene because no known triggers of malignant hyperthermia (ie, inhaled anesthetics and succinylcholine) are available. This article argues that, in the absence of succinylcholine, the morbidity and mortality from laryngospasm can be significant, indeed, higher than the unlikely scenario of succinylcholine-triggered malignant hyperthermia.

Paravertebral block: new benefits from an old procedure.

Purpose Of Review: Paravertebral blocks are becoming increasingly popular, especially as an anesthetic adjunct for breast procedures. New reports suggest additional reasons for adding this block to the anesthetic armamentarium.

Recent Findings: Recent studies demonstrate a benefit from preoperative placement of a paravertebral block, not only in reducing acute postoperative pain, but also statistically significant reductions in the percentage of patients that develop chronic postsurgical pain 1 year after surgery.

The efficacy and safety of pain management before and after implementation of hospital-wide pain management standards: is patient safety compromised by treatment based solely on numerical pain ratings?

Unlabelled: Inadequate analgesia in hospitalized patients prompted the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations in 2001 to introduce standards that require pain assessment and treatment. In response, many institutions implemented treatment guided by patient reports of pain intensity indexed with a numerical scale. Patient safety associated with treatment of pain guided by a numerical pain treatment algorithm (NPTA) has not been examined.

Capnography accurately detects apnea during monitored anesthesia care.

Apnea and airway obstruction are common during monitored anesthesia care (MAC). Because their early detection is essential, we sought to measure the efficacy of capnography as an indicator of apnea during MAC at a variety of oxygen flow rates compared with thoracic impedance. Anesthesia care providers using standard American Society of Anesthesiologists monitors were blinded to capnography and thoracic impedance monitoring.

Comparative outcomes analysis of procedures performed in physician offices and ambulatory surgery centers.

Hypothesis: This study compared outcomes to determine whether patient safety is similar in Florida ambulatory surgery centers and offices.

Data Sources: All adverse incident reports to the Florida Board of Medicine for procedure dates April 1, 2000, to April 1, 2002 were reviewed. The numbers of office procedures performed during a 4-month period were used to estimate the total number of procedures.