Postoperative complications associated with extubation strategies following palatoplasty: a single-center retrospective analysis.

Purpose: Palatoplasty carries a high risk of airway obstruction as a postoperative complication. Since 2007, the protocol in our hospital has been to leave an endotracheal tube in place after surgery while the patient is moved to the pediatric intensive care unit. Extubation is then performed after achievement of hemostasis and recovery of consciousness.

[Anesthetic management of a patient with Fontan circulation with pacemaker failure].

We describe the anesthetic management of a 23-year-old female patient with severe bradycardia due to pacemaker lead disconnection. The pacemaker had been placed due to complete AV block following an extracardiac Fontan operation. She was scheduled for lead repair under general anesthesia.

[Risk management in pediatric regional anesthesia].

Although regional analgesia exerts beneficial effects not only for reducing the stress responses during surgery but also for pain relief after surgery, adverse incidents have occurred even at a low rate. Severe complications such as spinal penetration during epidural block can devastate not only patients, families but also our staffs and we have to avoid such disastrous result absolutely. Retrospective and prospective studies are seldom able to register the precise incident rate of severely injured complication related to regional blocks because the rate is very low.

[Case of spinal anesthesia for pyrolomyotomy in a former preterm infant with chronic lung disease].

A former premature infant (1,795 g) with chronic lung disease underwent pyrolomyotomy under spinal anesthesia. She had been managed with artificial ventilation for 2 months after birth and had developed chronic lung disease. She showed frequent apnea with desaturation several times per day and 21 x min(-1) of oxygen had been administered.

[Spinal anesthesia for a inguinal hernia repair in a small child with laryngeal stenosis].

We experienced spinal anesthesia for inguinal hernia repair in combination with general anesthesia in a 4-year-old child with functional laryngeal stenosis and tendency of laryngeal edema. His airway was managed without endotracheal tube or laryngeal mask airway because these devices could worsen the upper airway stenosis. Spinal anesthesia offered reliable and potent analgesia leading to safe anesthetic management under spontaneous breathing.

The effective time and concentration of nitrous oxide to reduce venipuncture pain in children.

Study Objective: To investigate the time of administration and concentration of inhaled nitrous oxide (N(2)O) needed to reduce the pain associated with intravenous (i.v.) cannulation in children.