Parenteral amino acids v. dextrose infusion: an anabolic strategy to minimise the catabolic response to surgery while maintaining normoglycaemia in diabetes mellitus type 2 patients

Loss of body protein and hyperglycaemia represent typical features of the stress response to surgery and anaesthesia. This appears to be particularly pronounced in patients with diabetes mellitus type 2. The aim of the present study was to highlight the greater benefit of amino acids (AA) as represented by positive protein balance and maintenance of blood glucose homoeostasis compared with dextrose (DEX) in diabetic patients after colorectal surgery. A total of thirteen patients underwent a 5h stable isotope infusion study (2h fasted, 3h fed with an infusion of AA (n 6) or DEX (n 7)) on the second post-operative day. Glucose and protein kinetics were assessed by using the stable isotopes l-[1-13C]leucine and [6,6-2H2]glucose. The transition from fasted to fed state decreased endogenous glucose production (P<0·001) in both groups, with a more profound effect in the DEX group (P=0·031). In contrast, total glucose production was increased by the provision of DEX while being lowered by AA (P=0·021). Feeding decreased protein oxidation (P=0·009) and protein synthesis in the AA group, whereas DEX infusion did not affect oxidation and even decreased protein synthesis. Therefore, only AA shifted protein balance to a positive value, while patients in the DEX group remained in a catabolic state (P<0·001). Parenteral nutritional support with AA rather than with DEX is an effective strategy to achieve a positive protein balance while maintaining normoglycaemia in diabetic patients after colorectal surger

[The preoperative anaesthetic visit]

Anaesthetists often visit their patients in exceptional situations characterised by preoperative anxiety or distress. Therefore, even brief contact with the patient can be considered intense and meaningful. The initial preoperative anaesthetic visit is the beginning of the relationship between patient and anaesthetist, and should help to explain the planned anaesthetic technique. Preoperative anaesthetic visits are intense and last for 20 minutes on average. They should assert a professional approach to the patient's emotions, particularly to preoperative anxiety, and a structured and clear collection of information including the past history of the patient. These visits should also provide information about the anaesthesia itself and instructions for the patient with respect to the perioperative period. Communication about the side effects and risks of anaesthetic techniques, and the discussion of potential alternatives are mandatory. Worldwide, courts of law increasingly require a documented discussion between the anaesthetist and patient based on risk-benefit evidence. Today, there is in general a shift away from decisions made solely by physicians, reflecting an increased respect for the autonomy of the patient towards a model of shared decision-making and informed choice. Ideally, the preoperative visit follows the four key habits of highly effective clinicians, i.e., to rapidly establish a rapport with the patient and provide an agenda for the visit, to explore the patient's perspectives and expectations, to demonstrate empathy, and to focus on the end of the visit with providing information and including the patient in the decision-making process. Visits are then concluded upon obtaining informed consent from the patient

Active research fields in anesthesia: a document co-citation analysis of the anesthetic literature

BACKGROUND: The expansion of science has resulted in an increased information flow and in an exponentially growing number of connections between knowledge in different research fields. In this study, we used methods of scientometric analysis to obtain a conceptual network that forms the structure of active scientific research fields in anesthesia. METHODS: We extracted from the Web of Science (Institute for Scientific Information) all original articles (n = 3275) including their references (n = 79,972) that appeared in 2003 in all 23 journals listed in the Institute for Scientific Information Journal Citation Reports under the subject heading "Anesthesiology." After identification of highly cited references (< or = 5), pairs of co-cited references were created and grouped into uniformly structured clusters of documents using a single linkage and variable level clustering method. In addition, for each such cluster of documents, we identified corresponding front papers published in 2003, each of which co-cited at least two documents of the cluster core. Active anesthetic research fields were then named by examining the titles of the documents in both the established clusters and in their corresponding front papers. These research fields were sorted according to the proportion of recent documents in their cluster core (immediacy index) and were further analyzed. RESULTS: Forty-six current anesthetic research fields were identified. The research field named "ProSeal laryngeal mask airway" showed the highest immediacy index (100%) whereas the research fields "Experimental models of neuropathic pain" and "Volatile anesthetic-induced cardioprotection" exhibited the highest level of co-citation strength (level 9). The research field with the largest cluster core, containing 12 homogeneous papers, was "Postoperative nausea and vomiting." The journal Anesthesia ; Analgesia published most front papers while Anesthesiology published most of the fundamental documents used as references in the front papers. CONCLUSIONS: Using co-citation analysis, we identified distinct homogenous clusters of highly cited documents representing 46 active current anesthetic research fields and determined multiple nets of knowledge among them

Anaesthetic mechanisms : update on the challenge of unravelling the mystery of anaesthesia

General anaesthesia is administered each day to thousands of patients worldwide. Although more than 160 years have passed since the first successful public demonstration of anaesthesia, a detailed understanding of the anaesthetic mechanism of action of these drugs is still lacking. An important early observation was the Meyer-Overton correlation, which associated the potency of an anaesthetic with its lipid solubility. This work focuses attention on the lipid membrane as a likely location for anaesthetic action. With the advent of cellular electrophysiology and molecular biology techniques, tools to dissect the components of the lipid membrane have led, in recent years, to the widespread acceptance of proteins, namely receptors and ion channels, as more likely targets for the anaesthetic effect. Yet these accumulated data have not produced a comprehensive explanation for how these drugs produce central nervous system depression. In this review, we follow the story of anaesthesia mechanisms research from its historical roots to the intensely neurophysiological research regarding it today. We will also describe recent findings that identify specific neuroanatomical locations mediating the actions of some anaesthetic agents

Postoperative patient complaints : a prospective interview study of 12,276 patients

To evaluate the incidence of perioperative minor adverse events and to analyze patient satisfaction based on potential explanatory variables

B-type natriuretic peptide in patients undergoing orthopaedic surgery : a prospective cohort study

Postoperative cardiac complications pose a substantial risk to patients undergoing orthopaedic surgery