We have investigated the incidence of throat complaints 6-24 h after tracheal intubation in 1325 patients. Variables such as anaesthetic drug, intubation time, number of intubation attempts, gastric tube, sex and age were recorded. The incidence of sore throat was considerably lower (14.4%) compared with other reports in the literature and was significantly greater in females (17.0% vs 9.0%) and after thyroid surgery. The incidence of sore throat was not increased after multiple intubation attempts or after administration of suxamethonium or a non-depolarizing neuromuscular blocker.

The prone position may prove beneficial in some cases of hypoxemic respiratory failure, even in awake patients, by avoiding mechanical ventilation and ventilator-associated complications.

Laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) is the preferred surgical treatment for symptomatic gallstones. The laparoscopic procedure is superior to the open approach in many aspects. Intraperitoneal spillage of bile and gallstones is one of the most common accidental occurrences of LC. We present a case of a 53-year-old woman who developed two abscesses­—one intra-abdominally and one in the abdominal wall—17 years after an LC. Three gallstones were found during surgical excision of the abdominal wall abscess. Surgeons should strive to avoid perforation of the gall bladder during LC. If spillage is inevitable attempts should be made to laparoscopically extract as many stones as possible. Documentation of (suspected) spillage is paramount when evaluating the possibility of postoperative complications, even many years later.

Twinning and higher-order multiple-gestation pregnancies have become relatively frequent in the current era of assisted reproductive techniques. Vascular interconnections are present in nearly all monochorionic twin placentae, yet hemodynamically significant arteriovenous anastomoses resulting in the feto-fetal transfusion syndrome occur in only 5%-18% of these. When arteriovenous connections through a shared placental cotyledon are present, variable amounts of blood may be transfused from one fetus to the other, and feto-fetal transfusion syndrome may result. While reports of renal failure due to a small non-functioning kidney in the donor infant pre- or postnatally have been published, recoverable renal insufficiency has not been previously delineated in feto-fetal transfusion syndrome. This article describes a case of postnatal transient renal insufficiency in a donor infant from a pair of monozygotic twins.

No abstract