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Bedside sonography performed by a radiologist is an effective and sensitive diagnostic procedure for confirming the correct NGT position in patients in the pediatric critical care unit.

Objective Moderate to severe pain may occur following arthroscopic shoulder surgery. An erector spinae plane block (ESPB) may be used for painful conditions of the shoulder. The primary hypothesis of this trial is that ultrasound-guided ESPB would provide effective analgesia by reducing opioid consumption. The secondary hypothesis is that ESPB would result in low pain scores and reduce the use of rescue analgesia. Design Randomized prospective double-blind study. Setting Academic university hospital. Subjects Sixty patients aged between 18 and 65 years designated as American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) class I or II who underwent unilateral arthroscopic shoulder surgery under general anesthesia were included in the study. Methods Patients were equally divided into two groups—either the ESPB group (n=30) or the sham block group (n=30). ESPB was performed with 30 mL 0.25% bupivacaine at the T2 level in the ESPB group and sham block with 30 mL saline at the T2 level in the sham block group. Twenty minutes before the end of the operation, 100 mg tramadol was administered intravenously to the patients. Intravenous ibuprofen 400 mg 3 × 1 was ordered for the patients during the postoperative period. A patient control analgesia device including a dose of 10 µg/mL fentanyl was connected to the patients. Results There were no statistical differences between groups in terms of demographical data. Postoperative fentanyl consumption was significantly lower in the ESPB group than in the sham block group (96.66 µg ±105.57 µg and 230 µg ±247.17 µg, respectively) (P=0.009). The need for rescue analgesia was significantly lower in the ESPB group than in the sham block group (26.66 mg ±35.43 mg and 48.5 mg ±35.45 mg, respectively) (P=0.020). Overall, the visual analog scale scores were significantly lower in the ESPB group than in the sham block group. Conclusions ESPB may provide effective analgesia treatment following arthroscopic shoulder surgery.

Objectives Platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio is a novel biomarker, recently shown to be correlated with atherosclerotic inflammation. This study investigated the role of platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio in patients with carotid artery stenosis and stroke. Methods Patients, who underwent carotid angiography with Multiple Detector Computed Tomography Angiography at our hospital, were retrospectively screened. Patients enrolled were divided into three groups based on the platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio. Patients with a platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio value between 55.0 and 106.71 were assigned to Group I, patients with a platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio value between 106.79 and 160.61 were assigned to Group II and patients with a platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio value between 162.96 and 619.61 were assigned to Group III. The carotid arterial stenosis calculated was classified as per the criteria of North American Symptomatic Carotid Endarterectomy Trial. Results One hundred fifty patients were included in our trial (mean age 61.9 ± 13.1 with 104 males). The rate of carotid arterial stenosis was detected to be higher in patients with a high platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio value (p = 0.010). Additionally, the platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio was positively correlated with the carotid arterial stenosis percentage (r = 0.250, p = 0.002). In the multi-variate regression analysis, platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio was detected to be an independent variable with respect to stroke (odd's ratio = 1.012, confidence interval = 1.001-1.024, p = 0.031). Conclusions Increased platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio could be a simple and practical marker of the clinical course in patients with carotid arterial stenosis.

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