Continuing promise 2009--assessment of a recent pediatric surgical humanitarian mission.

Purpose: Surgical organizations have begun to focus their efforts on providing humanitarian assistance in international communities. Most surgeons do not have previous international experience and lack an understanding of what is expected and what care they can provide. The unknown factors include case types, patient volume, postoperative care, and equipment.

Preinduction techniques for pediatric anesthesia.

Purpose Of Review: Preparing pediatric patients for their surgical experience is a complex process that may be facilitated by pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic techniques. Several techniques often utilized in the preoperative setting to decrease the anxiety level of pediatric patients and their parents include the administration of a sedative premedicant, parental presence during induction, and a variety of other non-pharmacologic modalities. These techniques may be useful, alone or in combination, to decrease anxiety levels in children and parents.

Extraluminal use of the Arndt pediatric endobronchial blocker in an infant: a case report.

Purpose: Attaining lung isolation in the infant undergoing thoracic anesthesia can be challenging for the anesthesiologist. We describe a novel approach to performing lung isolation in an infant undergoing thoracotomy for lobectomy using an Arndt pediatric endobronchial blocker via an extraluminal technique.

Clinical Features: Lung isolation in an infant was achieved through the use of an Arndt pediatric endobronchial blocker placed externally to an endotracheal tube.

Intraoperative latex hypersensitivity: do not overlook Penrose drains.

We report a case of intraoperative latex hypersensitivity to Penrose surgical drains (Ansell, Massillon, Ohio). To our knowledge, there has been no previous report of such a reaction with this device.