Prone positioning increases IOP during anesthesia. Ocular perfusion pressure could therefore decrease, despite maintenance of normotension.

Object. The authors' goal was to determine whether the incidence of postoperative sore throat, hoarseness, and dysphagia associated with anterior spine surgery is reduced by maintaining endotracheal tube cuff pressure (ETCP) at 20 mm Hg during the period of neck retraction. Methods. Fifty-one patients scheduled for anterior cervical spine surgery were enrolled. After intubation, ETCP was adjusted to 20 mm Hg in all patients. Following placement of neck retractors, ETCP was measured. Patients were randomized to a control (no adjustment) or treatment group (ETCP adjusted to 20 mm Hg). A blinded observer questioned the patients about the presence of sore throat, dysphagia, and hoarseness at 1 hour, 24 hours, and 1 week postoperatively. No differences between groups at 1 hour postoperatively were demonstrated. At 24 hours, 51% of patients in the treatment group complained of sore throat compared with 74% of control patients (p < 0.05). Sixty-five percent of the women experienced sore throat compared with 35% of the men (p < 0.05). At 24 hours, longer retraction time correlated with development of dysphagia (p < 0.05, r2 = 0.61). At 24 hours, hoarseness was present in 65% of women and 20% of men (p < 0.05). Conclusions. The results of this study suggest the following three predictors of postoperative throat discomfort following anterior cervical spine surgery in which neck retraction is performed: increased ETCP during neck retraction (sore throat), neck retraction time (dysphagia), and female sex (sore throat and hoarseness). The simple maneuver of decreasing ETCP to 20 mm Hg may be helpful in improving patient comfort following anterior cervical spine surgery.

These results suggest the necessity of a high index of suspicion for evolving perioperative visual loss even in the absence of risk factors.

Blood temperature at the jugular bulb was monitored in 10 patients undergoing neurovascular procedures that used induced mild hypothermia, and its correlation with surface brain, core, and peripheral temperatures was determined. The study was motivated by the difficulty encountered in directly measuring global brain temperature and the poor correlations between various core and peripheral sites temperatures and brain temperature, particularly during deep hypothermia. Although not statistically significant, previous studies have suggested a trend toward higher brain temperatures. Temperatures from the jugular bulb (collected using a No. 5 French Swan-Ganz catheter) as well as from subdural, pulmonary artery, esophagus, tympanic membrane, and bladder sites were analyzed during three surgical conditions: prior to incision, with the dura open, and after closure of the dura. No complications related to placement of the jugular bulb catheter, induced hypothermia, or temperature monitoring were seen. The authors found that jugular bulb temperature was similar to pulmonary artery and esophageal temperatures; although prior to incision it tended to be higher than that found at the pulmonary artery, most commonly by 0.2 degrees C. Surface brain temperature was cooler than all other temperatures (p < 0.05), except that of the tympanic membrane, and was particularly sensitive to environmental variations. Finally, as has been shown by others, bladder temperature lagged substantially behind core temperatures particularly during rapid cooling and rewarming of the patient. In summary, monitoring of jugular bulb temperature is a feasible technique, and temperatures measured in the jugular bulb are similar to core temperatures.