Efficacy of thoracic epidural analgesia with or without intercostal nerve cryoanalgesia for postthoracotomy pain.

Background: We evaluated effects of thoracic epidural analgesia combined with intercostal nerve cryoanalgesia or epidural analgesia alone on acute and long-term pain after posterolateral thoracotomy.

Methods: Forty-two elective thoracotomy patients were randomly assigned to two groups, epidural combined with cryoanalgesia or epidural alone. A thoracic epidural catheter was inserted before induction of anesthesia.

Adjuvant arteriovenous fistula as means of rescue for infrapopliteal venous bypass with poor runoff.

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the outcome of infrapopliteal bypass when an adjuvant arteriovenous (AV) fistula was reconstructed as means of rescue as a result of poor runoff. The design was a retrospective multicenter case-control study.

Methods: Seventy-seven infrapopliteal vein bypasses required an adjuvant AV fistula among 1813 patients operated on for critical leg ischemia in 3 vascular centers between 1996 and 2003.