Development of the Minimalist Approach for Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement at a Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Objectives: While a minimalist transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) approach has shown safety and efficacy at civilian hospitals, limited data exist regarding developing this approach at Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers (VAMCs). We implemented TAVR with minimalist approach (MA) using conscious sedation (CS) with transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) and compared safety and outcomes with general anesthesia (GA) with transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) at a university-affiliated VAMC.

Methods: A total of 258 patients underwent transfemoral TAVR at a VAMC between November 2013 and October 2019.

COVID-19 Infection: Implications for Perioperative and Critical Care Physicians.

Healthcare systems worldwide are responding to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), an emerging infectious syndrome caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus. Patients with COVID-19 can progress from asymptomatic or mild illness to hypoxemic respiratory failure or multisystem organ failure, necessitating intubation and intensive care management. Healthcare providers, and particularly anesthesiologists, are at the frontline of this epidemic, and they need to be aware of the best available evidence to guide therapeutic management of patients with COVID-19 and to keep themselves safe while doing so.

Association of Perioperative Statin Use With Mortality and Morbidity After Major Noncardiac Surgery.

Importance: The efficacy of statins in reducing perioperative cardiovascular and other organ system complications in patients undergoing noncardiac surgery remains controversial. Owing to a paucity of randomized clinical trials, analyses of large databases may facilitate informed hypothesis generation and more efficient trial design.

Objective: To evaluate associations of early perioperative statin use with outcomes in a national cohort of veterans undergoing noncardiac surgery.

Anesthetic management during cardiopulmonary bypass: a systematic review.

Cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) required for cardiac surgery presents unique challenges to the cardiac anesthesiologist responsible for providing the 3 most basic facets of any anesthetic: amnesia, analgesia, and muscle relaxation. Unique pathophysiologic changes during CPB result in pharmacokinetic alterations that impact the serum and tissue concentrations of IV and volatile anesthetics. Similarly, CPB causes pharmacodynamic alterations that impact anesthetic efficacy.