[Diltiazem compared with placebo in the prevention of myocardial ischemia during non-cardiac surgery].

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy and safety of intravenous diltiazem to prevent myocardial ischemia during surgery on patients with ischemic heart disease undergoing non cardiac surgery under general anesthesia.

Patients And Method: Sixty patients scheduled for elective non cardiac surgery under general anesthesia were randomly assigned to two groups to receive diltiazem or placebo under double blind conditions. After an intravenous dose of 0.

Nimodipine fails to enhance the analgesic effect of slow release morphine in the early phases of cancer pain treatment.

We assessed nimodipine's ability to increase the analgesic effect of morphine in 32 patients suffering from cancer pain in a double-blind, placebo controlled cross-over study. Morphine administration began a few days before the start of the study. The analgesic effects of two combinations were compared: morphine (M) plus placebo (P) and morphine plus 90 mg/24 h of nimodipine (N).

Difficult management of pain following sacrococcygeal chordoma: 13 months of subarachnoid infusion.

We report on a patient suffering severe pain following a long-standing sacral chordoma in whom management of therapy and pain was extremely difficult. Because orally administered morphine was observed to be ineffective in the early stages of treatment, we tried to achieve pain relief by using epidural morphine. This was also unsatisfactory.

[Influence of anesthetic technique in postoperative analgesia in thoracic surgery].

Objective: To compare the intensity of postoperative pain after thoracotomy with 2 anesthetic techniques: 1) thoracic epidural block with bupivacaine administered before surgery (combined anesthesia with isoflurane) and 2) conventional balanced anesthesia with isoflurane and endovenous fentanyl.

Patients And Methods: Thirty patients scheduled for thoracotomy by lateral incision (T5-T6) were randomly divided into 2 groups of 15. Group A received 8 ml of 0.

[Thoracic epidural anesthesia by the caudal route in pediatric anesthesia: age is a limiting factor].

Objectives: To evaluate the success and degree of difficulty of inserting an epidural catheter into the caudal space in order to place its distal end at T10 in young patients.

Patients And Methods: Forty-seven children up to 97 months old were studied. With the patients under general anesthesia with an orotracheal tube, a predetermined length of 18-G epidural catheter (Minipack: SYSTEM 2-Portex) was inserted to T10.

[Utility of epidural catheterization by the caudal route in pediatric anesthesia].

Objectives: To compare analgesic effect of bupivacaine during and after surgery when delivered through a lumbar epidural catheter entering by the caudal route with either caudal or lumbar administration of anesthetic through the needle.

Patients And Methods: One hundred forty ASA I patients under 110 months undergoing infraumbilical surgery were studied. The children were distributed randomly into 3 groups: group 1, caudal puncture and anesthesia with 2.

[Comparison between fentanyl and a fentanyl-bupivacaine combination using epidural PCA for postoperative analgesia after thoracotomy].

Hypothesis: The association of opioids and local anesthetics for spinal analgesia appears to have a synergistic++ effect.

Objective: To compare the efficacy of fentanyl in comparison with combined fentanyl and bupivacaine at low concentrations in a thoracic epidural system of patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) following thoracotomy.

Patients And Methods: Twenty male patients scheduled for thoracotomy by postero-lateral (T5-T6) incision received analgesia after surgery through a thoracic (T4-T8) epidural catheter connected to a PCA pump (continuous infusion and boluses).

[Propofol: ED50 and ED90 induction doses in pediatric anesthesia].

Objective: To study ED50 and ED90 induction doses of propofol in children.

Patients And Methods: Seventy-two children from 1 to 110 months of age and premedicated with pentobarbital 4 mg/kg participated in the study. Seven different doses of propofol (1.

[The therapeutic management of the rupture of a kidney graft].

From a consecutive series of 106 renal transplants, we present our experience on spontaneous renal allograft rupture. This complication appeared in 6 patients, which accounts for 5.6% of the overall group: four patients (66.

[Accidentally diagnosed hypernephromas. Retrospective study and evaluation of their importance in clinical practice].

Presentation of a retrospective study on 50 hypernephromas seen in our service, including an evaluation of those that were accidentally diagnosed. Nineteen of these were diagnosed by chance and 9 as a result of other investigations required for the study of a gastrointestinal disease, these studies being in most cases an ultrasound recording. Data obtained with this review allows us to compare these results with those from other authors, as well as to evaluate the relevance of such diagnoses in the daily clinical practice.

Pneumocephalus after accidental dural puncture during epidural anesthesia.

BACKGROUND. Pneumocephalus developed in a 45-year-old woman after epidural anesthesia was performed to treat her low back pain. The cause was thought to be the loss of resistance to air technique.

Interpleural analgesia through a DuPen catheter for lung cancer pain.

Background: Pain, one of the most frequent symptoms of lung cancer, is difficult to control at times, not only because of the many structures involved but also because of the paths through which the pain is conveyed.

Methods: When usual analgesic treatment did not alleviate pain after chemotherapy in a patient with lung adenocarcinoma, long-term interpleural analgesia was begun. A DuPen epidural catheter was inserted between the pleura parietalis and visceralis for the administration of bupivacaine in a bolus regimen every 6 hours.

[Transvesical ureteroneocystostomy: the assessment of vesicoureteral reflux in the kidney transplant].

In 51 heterotopic renal transplants performed in our setting, the continuity of the urinary tract was achieved by transvesical ureteroneocystostomy utilizing the Politano-Leadbetter and Paquin techniques. A retrospective study was conducted to determine the incidence of vesicoureteral reflux (VUR) in patients submitted to the foregoing techniques. Reflux was observed in only 1 (2.

[Subjectivity and objectivity in transperineal biopsy and transrectal prostatic aspiration cytology].

Transperineal biopsy (TPB) together with transrectal aspirative cytology (TRAC) was performed in 50 prostates, 28 carcinomas and 22 no malignant pathologies. Both techniques were compared both objectively as subjectively. With TPB in 3.

Plasma bupivacaine levels after pleural block: the effect of epinephrine after unilateral or bilateral bupivacaine administration.

Background And Objectives: To determine the effect of adding epinephrine (5 micrograms/ml) to bupivacaine during continuous spinal infusion and the effect of the administration of the same total dose of bupivacaine, in a bilateral or unilateral way, on its consequent plasma levels.

Methods: Sixteen cholecystectomized patients were studied prospectively. In ten patients with midline incision, bilateral pleural infusion (half total unilateral dose in each hemithorax) was administered, and in six patients with subcostal incision, unilateral pleural infusion.

Sterile transient neonatal pustulosis is a precocious form of erythema toxicum neonatorum.

A sterile pustular skin eruption was observed in 17 of 3,541 newborn infants examined over a period of 30 months. The skin eruption was always present at birth and fulfilled the clinical criteria of transient neonatal pustular melanosis (TNPM). However, some days after birth, all of them but 1 developed skin lesions typical of erythema toxicum neonatorum (ETN).

Continuous pleural infusion of bupivacaine offers better postoperative pain relief than does bolus administration.

Background And Objectives: To determine whether continuous pleural analgesia offers better postoperative pain relief than does bolus administration in postcholecystectomy patients.

Methods: Eighty postcholecystectomy patients with a subcostal incision were randomly allocated to receive pleural analgesia with either a bolus regime of 20 ml 0.375% bupivacaine with 1:200,000 epinephrine at four-hour intervals (bolus group), or a loading dose of 20 ml 0.

[Renal biopsy of nephrologic origin. Report of 283 biopsies].

Two techniques are utilized for renal biopsy (RB): open renal biopsy (ORB) and percutaneous renal biopsy (PRB). We reviewed 283 renal biopsies: 140 ORBs and 143 PRBs. The number of glomeruli obtained were 34.

[Surgical renal biopsies: technique, effectiveness and complications].

Retrospective study made on 140 renal surgical biopsies (RSB) performed throughout the past 4 years in our Unit. The technique's effectiveness and morbidity are emphasized and the surgical technique and type of anaesthesia described. The sample obtained was enough to perform an essay in 100% cases, and a diagnosis was reached in 98.

[Prophylactic sclerosis of esophageal varices. Results of a controlled prospective study].

Background: Endoscopic sclerosis of esophageal varices is effective both to treat active hemorrhage and to prevent recurrences. By contrast, its usefulness for the prophylaxis of the first episode of hemorrhage is not well established, the available data being contradictory.

Methods: Overall 46 patients with cirrhosis and esophageal varices of type B or higher, without previous upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage, were randomized to be treated with prophylactic sclerosis or not (n = 22 and 24, respectively).

Occlusive arterial disease as a form of presentation of homocystinuria.

Homocystinuria was first described in 1962. The disease affects several systems including the eyes, skeletal and nervous and vascular systems. We present the case of a 28-year old woman who presented with a severe occlusive arteriopathy.

[Heparin-induced hemorrhage in the treatment of venous thromboembolism].

Retrospective study about the frequency of hemorrhagic complications (258 patients) in the treatment of venous thrombosis and/o pulmonary embolism, with heparin. Heparin was intermittently administered by endovenous way and controlled during the ten first days. Mostly of the big hemorrhages happened between the seventh and the tenth day, in digestive and urinary system mainly.