Good practice and safety

This introductory chapter is intended to emphasise the importance of two fundamental duties: the anaesthetist looking after the patient, and the anaesthetist looking after themselves. Looking after the patient requires building a culture of good practice, and encompasses perioperative safety, the causes of complications, briefing and debriefing, documentation, drug safety, vigilance and crisis management, handling of serious events, and evidence-based medicine. Self-care encompasses resilience, recognition of fatigue and burnout, mental health issues among anaesthetists, working while pregnant, personal protective equipment, manual handling, and dealing with a complaint.

How We Perform a David Procedure With an Upper Hemisternotomy Approach

Objective Valve-sparing aortic root replacement (David procedure) is the technique of choice in appropriately selected patients with aortic root aneurysms. These procedures are seldom performed in a minimally invasive fashion. We describe our systematic approach to the David procedure using an upper hemisternotomy (UHS). Methods: Our method involves a J-type UHS exiting the right third or fourth intercostal space. Ascending aortic and femoral venous cannulation are performed using the Seldinger technique under transesophageal echocardiographic guidance. Between August 2005 and August 2014, 27 patients underwent an isolated elective David procedure using a full sternotomy (FS). Sixteen underwent an isolated elective UHS David procedure from May 2015 to February 2019. Perioperative safety outcomes were compared between the 2 cohorts. Results: The UHS and FS David cohorts were primarily male (87.5% and 85.2%, respectively) and 51 and 50 years old on average, respectively. Custodiol-histidine-tryptophan-ketoglutarate cardioplegia (93.8% vs 37.0%, P < 0.001) and Cor-Knot (100% vs 0%, P < 0.001) were used significantly more in the UHS David cohort. There were no significant differences in cardiopulmonary bypass (200 [183–208] vs 212 [183–223] min, P = 0.309) and aortic cross-clamp (169 [155–179] vs 188 [155–199] min, P = 0.128) times in the UHS and FS cohorts. There were no instances of hospital or 30-day mortality in either cohort. Intensive care unit and hospital stays were comparable between the 2 cohorts. Conclusions: The David procedure via UHS is a safe and reproducible technique for aortic root replacement.

Clinical Study on the Efficacy of Laparoscopic Hepatectomy and Its Influence on the Expression of Serum VEGF, FGF, and Immune Function

Liver cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors. Partial hepatectomy is the most basic and effective treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma because of its high operative effect and perioperative safety. Open surgery is the most traditional hepatectomy. Although it can completely remove tumor lesions and prolong patient survival, it has disadvantages such as large trauma and long postoperative recovery time. Meanwhile, long-term bed rest can increase the risk of complications such as venous thrombosis and infection. The advantages of laparoscopic partial hepatectomy, such as clear operative field, simple operation, little trauma, light surgical stress, quick postoperative recovery, and low complications, can avoid damage to vital organs, blood vessels, and nerves, which has been widely accepted and recognized in clinical practice.

Analysis of surgical treatment of liver hemangiomas

Objective. Development of criteria for optimal tactics of surgical treatment of liver hemangiomas of various sizes and localizations. Materials and methods. A retrospective analysis of 247 patients with hepatic hemangiomas observed on an outpatient basis and in a hospital was carried out; 59 of them (23.89 %) were operated including 12 men and 47 women over the period of 19992019. Liver resection with hemangioma was performed in 30 patients, hemangioma enucleation in 21, X-ray endovascular occlusion in 8 patients. The diagnosis was established on the basis of ultrasound of the abdominal organs, CT and MRI with contrast as well as angiographic research methods. Results. The postoperative complications developed in 4 (6.78 %) cases: reactive pleurisy was detected in 2 patients after the right-sided hemihepatectomy, hematomas in the resection zone of segments of the right lobe of the liver with a tumor were diagnosed in 2 patients. All complications were eliminated by conservative measures. There were no lethal outcomes. Conclusions. Surgical treatment of patients with hemangiomas includes resection of the liver with a tumor, enucleation of the hemangioma, and various types of local destruction. In order to reduce the blood circulation of the tumor and decrease the risk of intraoperative blood loss, the ECA of the branches of the hepatic artery was indicated. A comparative analysis of the results of treatment of patients with liver hemangiomas using various methods of surgical interventions made it possible to develop optimal surgical tactics, a system of intra- and perioperative safety in this category of patients.

Promising effects of 33 to 36 Fr. bougie calibration for laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy: a systematic review and network meta-analysis

The standard size of bougie for laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) is not yet established. Therefore, a systematic review and network meta-analysis were conducted to assess the weight loss effects and associated complications of LSG for patients with morbid obesity, based on different bougie sizes. A total of 15 studies were reviewed in this systemic review and network meta-analysis (2,848 participants), including RCTs and retrospective studies in PubMed, and Embase until September 1, 2020. The effectiveness of different bougie calibration sizes was assessed based on excess weight loss (EWL), total complications, and staple line leak. Within this network meta-analysis, S-sized (≤ 32 Fr.) and M-sized (33–36 Fr.) bougies had similar effects and were associated with the highest EWL improvement among all different bougie sizes (S-sized: standardized mean difference [SMD], 10.52; 95% confidence interval [CI] − 5.59 to − 26.63, surface under the cumulative ranking curve [SUCRA], 0.78; and M-sized: SMD, 10.16; 95% CI − 3.04–23.37; SUCRA, 0.75). M-sized bougie was associated with the lowest incidence of total complications (M-sized: odds ratio, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.16–1.11; SUCRA, 0.92). Based on our network meta-analysis, using M-sized bougie (33–36 Fr.) is an optimal choice to balance the effectiveness and perioperative safety of LSG in the clinical practice.