Thoracic Surgical Oncology: Maintaining a High-Volume Surgical Program During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Thoracic surgical oncology is a time-sensitive, high-resource, complex surgical speciality to which coronavirus has posed a unique challenge. In response to the evolving situation in mainland Europe, our department rapidly established a coronavirus disease 2019-free site to maintain elective cancer surgery. This necessitated a strict admission pathway and perioperative patient management.

Nimesulide 90 mg orally twice daily does not influence postoperative morphine requirements after major chest surgery.

Background: Cyclooxygenase 2 inhibition has proven analgesic efficacy in a variety of surgical procedures. We postulated that perioperative cyclooxygenase 2 inhibition significantly reduces postoperative morphine requirements after major thoracic surgery and investigated the site of this potential analgesic effect.

Methods: Ninety-two patients participated in this single-center, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, parallel-group trial.

Benzodiazepine premedication may attenuate the stress response in daycase anesthesia: a pilot study.

Purpose: Patients undergoing daycase surgery suffer from varying degrees of fear and anxiety. There is conflicting evidence in the literature regarding the benefit of benzodiazepine premedication in daycase surgery. We carried out a prospective, double-blind, randomized pilot study investigating the effect of benzodiazepine premedication on the stress response in patients undergoing daycase anesthesia and surgery.

Pharmacokinetics of tranexamic acid during cardiopulmonary bypass.

Background: Tranexamic acid (TA) reduces blood loss and blood transfusion during heart surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). TA dosing has been empiric because only limited pharmacokinetic studies have been reported, and CPB effects have not been characterized. We hypothesized that many of the published TA dosing techniques would prove, with pharmacokinetic modeling and simulation, to yield unstable TA concentrations.