Midazolam premedication did not reduce the level of anxiety. However, midazolam premedication reduced the entropy values, stabilized hemodynamics, and provided analgesia during the induction of anesthesia. The purpose of midazolam premedication needs to be reconsidered.

BackgroundPatient-controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA) is known to provide good postoperative analgesia in many types of surgery including laparoscopic surgery. However, no study has compared PCEA with patient-controlled intravascular analgesia (PCIA) in laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LARP). In this study, the efficacy and side effects of PCEA and PCIA after LARP were compared.MethodsForty patients undergoing LARP were randomly divided into two groups: 1) a PCEA group, treated with 0.2% ropivacaine 3 ml and 0.1 mg morphine in the bolus; and 2) a PCIA group, treated with oxycodone 1 mg and nefopam 1 mg in the bolus. After the operation, a blinded observer assessed estimated blood loss (EBL), added a dose of rocuronium, performed transfusion, and added analgesics. The numeric rating scale (NRS), infused PCA dose, and side effects were assessed at 1, 6, 24, and 48 h.ResultsEBL, added rocuronium, and added analgesics in the PCEA group were less than those in the PCIA group. There were no significant differences in side-effects after the operation between the two groups. Patients were more satisfied with PCEA than with PCIA. The NRS and accumulated PCA count were lower in PCEA group.ConclusionsCombined thoracic epidural anesthesia could induce less blood loss during operations. PCEA showed better postoperative analgesia and greater patient satisfaction than PCIA. Thus, PCEA may be a more useful analgesic method than PICA after LARP.

Background: Postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) is a common complaint in patients following general anesthesia. Various antiemetics, including 5-hydroxytryptamine type 3 (5-HT 3 ) receptor antagonists, are effective but still have limited efficacy. Therefore, combination therapy is preferable to using a single drug alone in high-risk patients. We performed a comparative study on the antiemetic effect of palonosetron, a 5-HT 3 receptor antagonist, monotherapy vs palonosetron-midazolam combination therapy for the prevention of PONV. Methods: A total of 104 female patients scheduled for breast cancer surgery were enrolled. They were randomly divided into 2 groups, a palonosetron monotherapy group (group P) and palonosetron-midazolam combination therapy group (group PM). Both groups received 0.075 mg palonosetron intravenously after induction of anesthesia. Patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) was applied according to the allocated group. Intravenous (IV)-PCA in group P consisted of fentanyl 20 μg/kg plus normal saline (total volume: 100 ml); IV-PCA in group PM consisted of fentanyl 20 μg/kg plus midazolam 4 mg plus normal saline (total volume: 100 ml). Efficacy parameters were collected during 0 to 1, 1 to 6, 6 to 24, and 24 to 48 hours postoperative time intervals. These measures included complete response (defined as no PONV and no rescue anti-emetic use) rate, incidence of PONV, sedation score, rescue antiemetic use, rescue analgesic use, and numerical rating scale (NRS) for pain. The complete response rate during the 0 to 24 hours interval was analyzed as the primary outcome. Results: Although the complete response rate between 0 and 24 hours was higher in group PM (42.3% and 48.1% in group P and PM, respectively), there was no statistically significant difference ( P = .55). The complete response rates in other time intervals were not different between the 2 groups as well. The sedation score and NRS score also showed no differences between the 2 groups. Conclusions: The combination therapy of palonosetron with midazolam did not lead to a greater reduction in the incidence of PONV than monotherapy in patients undergoing breast surgery and receiving IV-PCA containing fentanyl.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background:Desflurane has lower solubility and shows a more rapid induction and recovery than sevoflurane, although it often induces increased cardiovascular response, emergence delirium, and respiratory complications. The change of anesthetic agent from sevoflurane to desflurane after induction may provide a smooth induction and rapid emergence. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of changing sevoflurane to desflurane after induction on the cardiovascular response, emergence delirium, and recovery characteristics during pediatric strabismus surgery. Methods: For the study, 135 children scheduled for strabismus surgery were randomly divided into three groups: the S group (n = 45) and D group (n = 45) received sevoflurane or desflurane, respectively, for induction and maintenance, while the C group (n = 45) received sevoflurane for induction and desflurane for maintenance. Cardiovascular responses, pediatric anesthesia emergence delirium (PAED) scale scores, post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) length of stay, and the incidence of postoperative complications were compared between groups. Results: The blood pressure of the D group was significantly different from that of the S and C groups (P ＜ 0.05). The time to extubation and first crying were significantly longer in the S group (P ＜ 0.001). There were no significant differences in PAED score, PACU length of stay, and the incidence of postoperative complications, except for cough, among the three groups. Conclusions: The change of desflurane after sevoflurane induction in pediatric strabismus surgery provided rapid emergence compared with sevoflurane, and attenuated cardiovascular responses and lesser respiratory complications as compared to desflurane. The emergence delirium was not influenced by either inhalational anesthetic. (Anesth Pain Med 2015; 10: 128-133)

Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is a biomarker indicated in different cancers, targeted for quantitative analysis via immunoassay. Here we introduce a new technique called magnetic force-assisted electrochemical sandwich immunoassay (MESIA) for determination of CEA level in a drop of human serum using a fully automated point-of-care testing (POCT) device. The analytical performances of the assay are assessed based on precision, accuracy, limit of blank (LoB), limit of detection (LoD) and limit of quantitation (LoQ), linearity, Hook effect, interference, cross-reactivity, and method comparison following the guidelines of the Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI). The LoD is 0.50 ng/ml. A linear relationship is shown in the range of 0.5–200 ng/ml. A high dose effect is not seen up to approximately 500,000 ng/ml. The recovery range is from 94.7 to 108.9%. The %CV of run-to-run and within-lab variations are less than 2.04 and 4.41% across the CEA concentrations, respectively, whereas reproducibility is 4.45–6.24%. Method comparison shows that the assay correlates well with the reference device (R2 = 0.9884). The assay demonstrates acceptable precision, accuracy, LoB, LoD and LoQ, hook effect, linearity, interference, cross-reactivity, and high correlation with its reference device. Thus, the system is suitable for the quantification of CEA in clinical practices with a POCT manner.