Is it really advantageous to operate proximal femoral fractures within 48 h from diagnosis? – A multicentric retrospective study exploiting COVID pandemic-related delays in time to surgery

Objectives: Hip fractures in the elderly are common injuries that need timely surgical management. Since the beginning of the pandemic, patients with a proximal femoral fracture (PFF) experienced a delay in time to surgery. The primary aim of this study was to evaluate a possible variation in mortality in patients with PFF when comparing COVID-19 negative versus positive. Methods: This is a multicentric and retrospective study including 3232 patients with PFF who underwent surgical management. The variables taken into account were age, gender, the time elapsed between arrival at the emergency room and intervention, pre-operative American Society of Anesthesiology score, pre-operative cardiovascular and respiratory disease, and 10-day/1-month/6-month mortality. For 2020, we had an additional column, “COVID-19 swab positivity.” Results: COVID-19 infection represents an independent mortality risk factor in patients with PFFs. Despite the delay in time-to-surgery occurring in 2020, no statistically significant variation in terms of mortality was detected. Within our sample, a statistically significant difference was not detected in terms of mortality at 6 months, in patients operated within and beyond 48 h, as well as no difference between those operated within or after 12/24/72 h. The mortality rate among subjects with PFF who tested positive for COVID-19 was statistically significantly higher than in patients with PFF who tested. COVID-19 positivity resulted in an independent factor for mortality after PFF. Conclusion: Despite the most recent literature recommending operating PFF patients as soon as possible, no significant difference in mortality was found among patients operated before or after 48 h from diagnosis

Management of hypotension after general anaesthesia induction - multicenter questionnaire study

Cíl studie: Cílem naší práce bylo posouzení variability terapie hypotenze po úvodu do celkové anestezie (GAIH). Typ studie: Multicentrická dotazníková studie. Typ pracovišť: Osm anesteziologických pracovišť různé velikosti z České a Slovenské republiky. Materiál a metoda: Respondenti odpovídali na tři identifikační otázky (pracoviště, délka praxe, specializovaná způsobilost) a deset zjišťovacích otázek týkajících se managementu GAIH v online dotazníku. Byla použita jednoduchá popisná statistika hodnotící zastoupení odpovědí respondentů v absolutních a relativních četnostech. Normalizovaná entropie (H) byla použita k posouzení variability odpovědí. Výsledky: Plně vyplněný dotazník jsme získali od 172 respondentů. Největší míra variability byla pozorována u otázky č. 1.: „Za referenční hodnotu tlaku krve, se kterou porovnávám další hodnoty..., považuji…“ (H = 0,966). Nejnižší míra variability odpovědí byla zaznamenána u otázky č. 4.: „Za hypotenzi považuji pokles…“ (H = 0,070). Závěr: Výsledky práce ukazují vysokou variabilitu názorů na terapii GAIH.Objective: The aim of our study was to assess the management of hypotension after general anaesthesia induction (GAIH). Design: Multicenter questionnaire study. Setting: Eight different size anaesthesiology departments located in the Czech or Slovak Republics. Materials and methods: The respondents responded to three identification questions (workplace, length of practince) and ten GAIH management questions in our online questionnaire. Simple descriptive statistics describing the representation of the respondents' answers in absolute and relative terms were used. Normalized entropy (H) was used to assess the variability of responses. Results: A fully completed questionnaire was obtained from 172 respondents. The highest rate of variability was observed in question 1.: "As the baseline blood pressure value (BP), to which I compare other BP values, I consider..." H = 0.966. The lowest response variability rate was observed in question 4.: "As hypotension, I consider the Of BP..." H = 0.07). Conclusion: Our results indicate high variability of GAIH management among anaesthetists.Web of Science303-412511