Background and objective Atypical 'cardiac' chest pain (ACCP) is not usually caused by myocardial ischaemia. Current noninvasive investigations for these symptoms are not yet as accurate as invasive coronary a...Background and objective Atypical 'cardiac' chest pain (ACCP) is not usually caused by myocardial ischaemia. Current noninvasive investigations for these symptoms are not yet as accurate as invasive coronary angiography. The latest 64-row multi-detector computed tomography (MDCT) technology is non-invasive, has high specificity and negative predictive values for the detection of significant coronary disease. Our aim was to investigate if this modality can provide more information in the assessment of outpatients with ACCP in addition to established cardiovascular risk scores. Methods Seventy consecutive patients presenting to the outpatient clinic with ACCP underwent 64-row MDCT scan of the coronary arteries. They were categorized into low, medium or high risk groups based upon the Framingham and PROCAM scores. We defined a clinically abnormal MDCT scan as coronary stenosis =50% or calcium score ＞400 Agatston. Results Fifty-three (75.7%) patients did not have clinically abnormal scans. Framingham score classified 43 patients as low-risk while PROCAM classified 59 patients as low-risk. MDCT scans were abnormal for 18.6% and 22.0% of the respective low-risk group of patients. For patients with medium-to-high risk, 33.3% and 36.4% of Framingham and PROCAM patient groups respectively had abnormal MDCT scans. Conclusion MDCT adds valuable information in the assessment of patients with ACCP by identifying a significant proportion of patients categorized as low-risk to have underlying significant coronary stenosis and coronary calcification by established cardiovascular risk scores.展开更多
Dizziness, chest discomfort, chest depression and dyspnea are a group of symptoms that are common complaints in clinical practice. Patients with these symptoms are usually informed that while neurosis consequent to co...Dizziness, chest discomfort, chest depression and dyspnea are a group of symptoms that are common complaints in clinical practice. Patients with these symptoms are usually informed that while neurosis consequent to coronary heart disease is excluded nonetheless they remain unhealthy with no rational explanation or treatment. 165 cases of these symptoms and 85 control subjects were reviewed and underwent further medical history inquiry, routine EKG test and cardiac ultrasound examination. Thirty-five patients received coronary artery angiography to exclude coronary heart disease. Serum myocardial autoantibodies against beta1-adrenoceptor, alpha-myosin heavy chain, M2-muscarinic receptor and adenine-nucleotide translocator were tested, and inflammatory cytokines and high sensitivity C-reaction protein were measured and lymphocyte subclass was assayed by flow cytometry. All patients had a complex of four symptoms or tetralogy： （1） persistent throat or upper respiratory tract infection, （2） neck pain, （3） chest pain and （4） chest depression or dyspnea, some of them with anxiety. Anti-myocardial autoantibodies （AMCAs） were present in all patients vs. 8% in controls. TNF-α, IL-1 and IL-6 were significantly higher in patients than in controls （P〈0.01）. CD3^＋ and CD4-CD8^＋ lymphocytes were significantly higher and CD56＋ lymphocytes lower in patients than those in controls （P〈0.01）. The ratio of serum pathogen antibodies positive against Coxsackie virus-B, cytomegalovirus, Mycoplasma pneumoniae and Chlamydia pneumoniae were all markedly higher in patients. These data led to identification of a persistent respiratory infection-related clinical syndrome, including persistent throat infection, neck spinal lesion, rib cartilage inflammation, symptoms of cardiac depression and dyspnea with or without anxiety.展开更多
Objective: To evaluate the quality of pain management in cardiac ICU patients by using a questionnaire. Methodology: All post cardiac surgery patients between 18 and 75 years old were included in this survey. Chronic ...Objective: To evaluate the quality of pain management in cardiac ICU patients by using a questionnaire. Methodology: All post cardiac surgery patients between 18 and 75 years old were included in this survey. Chronic pain patients, paediatric patients, emergency surgeries were excluded. A predesigned proforma was prepared according to American Pain Society recommendations and distributed among Cardiac ICU patients after 24 hours of extubation. This proforma was explained to the patients and collected later. The questionnaire was related to pain severity, aggravating and relieving factors, side effects of analgesics, affective experience and satisfaction with pain management. Results: Total 308 patients participated in one year period. 243 (78.9%) were male and 65 (21.1%) were female. Multimodal analgesia was used in most of the patients. Severity of pain was described as mild 70% and moderate 28.6%. Most of the patients complained of sharp pain 100 (37.5%), mainly at the site of incision 129 (41.9%). The main aggravating factor associated with increased pain was deep breathing 118 (39.8%) while pain was minimized by taking pain medications 40.6%. A significant association was found between preoperative counseling about pain options and satisfaction. 96.8% reported satisfaction with pain management. Conclusion: Although overall pain control was reported as adequate and patients were highly satisfied, there were areas which need further improvement. These include strategies to provide preoperative information about postoperative pain management and better training of medical staff to assess and manage pain. Additionally, the concerns and fears of patients about pain treatment need to be addressed.展开更多
<span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>Introduction:</strong></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Regional anaesthesia combined with general anaesthesia reduc...<span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>Introduction:</strong></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Regional anaesthesia combined with general anaesthesia reduces </span><span style="font-family:;" "=""><span style="font-family:Verdana;">stress response to surgery, duration of ventilation, intensive care unit (ICU) </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">stay and promotes early recovery. Studies on thoracic epidural, caudal analgesi</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">a along wit</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">h general anaesthesia (GA) in paediatric </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">cardiac surgery are limited he</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">nce we aimed to compare efficacy and safety of caudal, thoracic epid</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">ural and intravenous analgesia in paediatric cardiac surgery. </span><b><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Methodology: </span></b><span style="font-family:Verdana;">This study was conducted in the Department of Anaesthesiology in a tertiary care teaching hospital in southern India from February 2019 to December 2019. 90 children were randomised into group A, group B, group C. Children in group A received caudal analgesia along with GA. Group B children received thoracic epidural along with GA. Group C patients received intravenous analgesia along with GA. Rescue analgesia 1 mcg/kg fentanyl given in all 3 groups if p</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">ai</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">n score is more than 4. Primary outcome assessed was post-o</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">p pain sco</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">res. Secondary outcome assessed was duration of ventilation, duration of intensive care unit stay. </span><b><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Results:</span></b><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> All patients were comparable in terms of age, sex, </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">weight, mean RACHS score, baseline heart rate and blood pressure. Pain sco</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">res </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">were significantly lower in thoracic epidural group compared to other two grou</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> ps. Duration of ventilation was lower in thoracic epidural group (91.17</span></span><span style="font-family:;" "=""><span style="font-family:Verdana;">±</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> 43.85) minutes and caudal (199.6 </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">±</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> 723.59) minutes compared to intravenous analgesia groups (436.37 </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">±</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> 705.51) minutes. Duration of ICU stay was significantly low in thoracic epidural group (2.73 </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">±</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> 0.69) days compared to caudal (3.7 </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">±</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> 2.8) and intravenous analgesia groups (4.33 </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">±</span><span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> 0.920). We didn’t have </span><span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">any complications like hematoma, transient or permanent neurological sequelae in regional anesthesia groups. </span><b><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Conclusion:</span></b><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> Regional anaesthesia along with </span></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">general anaesthesia was more effective in pain relief than intravenous analgesia with general anaesthesia in paediatric cardiac surgery.</span></span></span>展开更多
Objective： This investigation was designed to stratify patients with acute chest pain based on their symptoms, electrocardiogram （ECG）, cardiac injury markers and the number of accompanying traditional risk factors...Objective： This investigation was designed to stratify patients with acute chest pain based on their symptoms, electrocardiogram （ECG）, cardiac injury markers and the number of accompanying traditional risk factors（smoking, obesity, hyperlipemia, hypertension, diabetes）, and to assess the effect of the above factors to obtain a risk stratification for patients with chest pain. Methods： We identified 139 patients with acute chest pain, including 45 myocardiac infarction patients, 65 unstable angina patients and 29 chest pain patients without identified acute coronary syndrome（ACS） admitted to our Coronary Heart Center during December 2004 to February 2005. All patients accepted coronary angiography. All data was collected using questionnaires. Based on reported symptom, electrocardiogram （ECG）, cardiac injury markers and the number of the accompanying traditional risk factors, we stratified all patients into four groups： Group 1, patients with acute chest pain, ECG changes and abnormal cardiac injury biomarkers. Group 2, patients with acute chest pain and ECG changes（without abnormal cardiac injury biomarkers）. Group 3, patients with acute chest pain, normal ECG, normal cardiac injury biomarkers and 〉2 traditional risk factors. Group 4, patients with acute chest pain, normal ECG and normal cardiac injury biomarkers, but only ≤ 2 traditional risk factors. From this data we examined the difference of ACS incidence in the four groups. Results：After stratification the ACS incidence of the grouped patients in turn was 100%, 84%, 69.6% and 53.3%. The combination of early phase ECG and cardiac injury markers identified 70.9% patients with ACS（the specificity being 90.7%）. The mortality of group 3 was higher compared with group 4（69.6% vs 53.3%）, however the P value was more than 0.05 and didn＇ t show significant statistical difference. The correlation analysis found the number of the traditional risk factors had a significant positive correlation （r= 0.202, P = 0.044） with the number of stenosis being more than 50% of the artery diameter. Multiple linear regression showed the hypertension had a significant correlation with the number of the diseased regions（P= 0.014）. Conclusions：The risk stratification based on the symptom, ECG, cardiac injury markers and accompanying traditional risk factors is both important and available in practice. It is unsuitable for patients with a normal ECG and cardiac injury markers to differentiate ACS from non-cardiac chest pain relying only on the number of the accompanying traditional risk factors. However we found the number of the risk factors can indicate the disease severity.展开更多
Objective: The objective of this study was to compare the efficacy of 0.5% ropivacaine and 0.25% bupivacaine for parasternal intercostal block for postoperative analgesia in children undergoing cardiac surgery. Design...Objective: The objective of this study was to compare the efficacy of 0.5% ropivacaine and 0.25% bupivacaine for parasternal intercostal block for postoperative analgesia in children undergoing cardiac surgery. Design: A randomized, controlled, prospective, double blind study. Setting: A tertiary care teaching hospital. Participants: One Hundred children scheduled for cardiac surgery through a median sternotomy were divided into 3 groups of at least 33 children each, receiving either ropivacaine, bupivacaine or saline (control). Interventions: A bilateral parasternal block performed either with 0.5% ropivacaine or 0.25% bupiacaine or 0.9% saline with 5 doses of 0.5 mL on each side in the 2nd to 6th parasternal intercostal spaces 1 to 1.5 cm lateral to the sternal edge, before sternal wound closure. Measurements and Main Results: The time to extubation was significantly less in children administered the parasternal blocks with ropivacaine or bupivacaine compared to the saline (control) group. The pain scores were lower and comparable in the ropivacaine and bupivacaine groups compared to the saline group. The cumulative fentanyl dose requirement over a 24-hour period was higher in the saline group than the ropivacaine (p < 0.001) and bupivacaine group. No side effects were observed in any of the children. Conclusions: Parasternal blocks either with ropivacaine or bupivacaine appear to be a simple, safe, and useful technique for supplementation of postoperative analgesia in children undergoing cardiac surgery with a median sternotomy.展开更多
文摘Background and objective Atypical 'cardiac' chest pain (ACCP) is not usually caused by myocardial ischaemia. Current noninvasive investigations for these symptoms are not yet as accurate as invasive coronary angiography. The latest 64-row multi-detector computed tomography (MDCT) technology is non-invasive, has high specificity and negative predictive values for the detection of significant coronary disease. Our aim was to investigate if this modality can provide more information in the assessment of outpatients with ACCP in addition to established cardiovascular risk scores. Methods Seventy consecutive patients presenting to the outpatient clinic with ACCP underwent 64-row MDCT scan of the coronary arteries. They were categorized into low, medium or high risk groups based upon the Framingham and PROCAM scores. We defined a clinically abnormal MDCT scan as coronary stenosis =50% or calcium score ＞400 Agatston. Results Fifty-three (75.7%) patients did not have clinically abnormal scans. Framingham score classified 43 patients as low-risk while PROCAM classified 59 patients as low-risk. MDCT scans were abnormal for 18.6% and 22.0% of the respective low-risk group of patients. For patients with medium-to-high risk, 33.3% and 36.4% of Framingham and PROCAM patient groups respectively had abnormal MDCT scans. Conclusion MDCT adds valuable information in the assessment of patients with ACCP by identifying a significant proportion of patients categorized as low-risk to have underlying significant coronary stenosis and coronary calcification by established cardiovascular risk scores.
基金supported by a grant from National Basic Research Program (973) of China (2007CB512004)NSFC (30430320 & 30571841).
文摘Dizziness, chest discomfort, chest depression and dyspnea are a group of symptoms that are common complaints in clinical practice. Patients with these symptoms are usually informed that while neurosis consequent to coronary heart disease is excluded nonetheless they remain unhealthy with no rational explanation or treatment. 165 cases of these symptoms and 85 control subjects were reviewed and underwent further medical history inquiry, routine EKG test and cardiac ultrasound examination. Thirty-five patients received coronary artery angiography to exclude coronary heart disease. Serum myocardial autoantibodies against beta1-adrenoceptor, alpha-myosin heavy chain, M2-muscarinic receptor and adenine-nucleotide translocator were tested, and inflammatory cytokines and high sensitivity C-reaction protein were measured and lymphocyte subclass was assayed by flow cytometry. All patients had a complex of four symptoms or tetralogy： （1） persistent throat or upper respiratory tract infection, （2） neck pain, （3） chest pain and （4） chest depression or dyspnea, some of them with anxiety. Anti-myocardial autoantibodies （AMCAs） were present in all patients vs. 8% in controls. TNF-α, IL-1 and IL-6 were significantly higher in patients than in controls （P〈0.01）. CD3^＋ and CD4-CD8^＋ lymphocytes were significantly higher and CD56＋ lymphocytes lower in patients than those in controls （P〈0.01）. The ratio of serum pathogen antibodies positive against Coxsackie virus-B, cytomegalovirus, Mycoplasma pneumoniae and Chlamydia pneumoniae were all markedly higher in patients. These data led to identification of a persistent respiratory infection-related clinical syndrome, including persistent throat infection, neck spinal lesion, rib cartilage inflammation, symptoms of cardiac depression and dyspnea with or without anxiety.
文摘Objective: To evaluate the quality of pain management in cardiac ICU patients by using a questionnaire. Methodology: All post cardiac surgery patients between 18 and 75 years old were included in this survey. Chronic pain patients, paediatric patients, emergency surgeries were excluded. A predesigned proforma was prepared according to American Pain Society recommendations and distributed among Cardiac ICU patients after 24 hours of extubation. This proforma was explained to the patients and collected later. The questionnaire was related to pain severity, aggravating and relieving factors, side effects of analgesics, affective experience and satisfaction with pain management. Results: Total 308 patients participated in one year period. 243 (78.9%) were male and 65 (21.1%) were female. Multimodal analgesia was used in most of the patients. Severity of pain was described as mild 70% and moderate 28.6%. Most of the patients complained of sharp pain 100 (37.5%), mainly at the site of incision 129 (41.9%). The main aggravating factor associated with increased pain was deep breathing 118 (39.8%) while pain was minimized by taking pain medications 40.6%. A significant association was found between preoperative counseling about pain options and satisfaction. 96.8% reported satisfaction with pain management. Conclusion: Although overall pain control was reported as adequate and patients were highly satisfied, there were areas which need further improvement. These include strategies to provide preoperative information about postoperative pain management and better training of medical staff to assess and manage pain. Additionally, the concerns and fears of patients about pain treatment need to be addressed.
文摘<span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>Introduction:</strong></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Regional anaesthesia combined with general anaesthesia reduces </span><span style="font-family:;" "=""><span style="font-family:Verdana;">stress response to surgery, duration of ventilation, intensive care unit (ICU) </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">stay and promotes early recovery. Studies on thoracic epidural, caudal analgesi</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">a along wit</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">h general anaesthesia (GA) in paediatric </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">cardiac surgery are limited he</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">nce we aimed to compare efficacy and safety of caudal, thoracic epid</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">ural and intravenous analgesia in paediatric cardiac surgery. </span><b><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Methodology: </span></b><span style="font-family:Verdana;">This study was conducted in the Department of Anaesthesiology in a tertiary care teaching hospital in southern India from February 2019 to December 2019. 90 children were randomised into group A, group B, group C. Children in group A received caudal analgesia along with GA. Group B children received thoracic epidural along with GA. Group C patients received intravenous analgesia along with GA. Rescue analgesia 1 mcg/kg fentanyl given in all 3 groups if p</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">ai</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">n score is more than 4. Primary outcome assessed was post-o</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">p pain sco</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">res. Secondary outcome assessed was duration of ventilation, duration of intensive care unit stay. </span><b><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Results:</span></b><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> All patients were comparable in terms of age, sex, </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">weight, mean RACHS score, baseline heart rate and blood pressure. Pain sco</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">res </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">were significantly lower in thoracic epidural group compared to other two grou</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> ps. Duration of ventilation was lower in thoracic epidural group (91.17</span></span><span style="font-family:;" "=""><span style="font-family:Verdana;">±</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> 43.85) minutes and caudal (199.6 </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">±</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> 723.59) minutes compared to intravenous analgesia groups (436.37 </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">±</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> 705.51) minutes. Duration of ICU stay was significantly low in thoracic epidural group (2.73 </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">±</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> 0.69) days compared to caudal (3.7 </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">±</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> 2.8) and intravenous analgesia groups (4.33 </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">±</span><span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> 0.920). We didn’t have </span><span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">any complications like hematoma, transient or permanent neurological sequelae in regional anesthesia groups. </span><b><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Conclusion:</span></b><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> Regional anaesthesia along with </span></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">general anaesthesia was more effective in pain relief than intravenous analgesia with general anaesthesia in paediatric cardiac surgery.</span></span></span>
基金This study was supported by the Province Natural Science Foundation of the Department of Education of Jiangsu(01 KJB320003)Innovation Fund of Nanjing Medical University(CX 2003001)
文摘Objective： This investigation was designed to stratify patients with acute chest pain based on their symptoms, electrocardiogram （ECG）, cardiac injury markers and the number of accompanying traditional risk factors（smoking, obesity, hyperlipemia, hypertension, diabetes）, and to assess the effect of the above factors to obtain a risk stratification for patients with chest pain. Methods： We identified 139 patients with acute chest pain, including 45 myocardiac infarction patients, 65 unstable angina patients and 29 chest pain patients without identified acute coronary syndrome（ACS） admitted to our Coronary Heart Center during December 2004 to February 2005. All patients accepted coronary angiography. All data was collected using questionnaires. Based on reported symptom, electrocardiogram （ECG）, cardiac injury markers and the number of the accompanying traditional risk factors, we stratified all patients into four groups： Group 1, patients with acute chest pain, ECG changes and abnormal cardiac injury biomarkers. Group 2, patients with acute chest pain and ECG changes（without abnormal cardiac injury biomarkers）. Group 3, patients with acute chest pain, normal ECG, normal cardiac injury biomarkers and 〉2 traditional risk factors. Group 4, patients with acute chest pain, normal ECG and normal cardiac injury biomarkers, but only ≤ 2 traditional risk factors. From this data we examined the difference of ACS incidence in the four groups. Results：After stratification the ACS incidence of the grouped patients in turn was 100%, 84%, 69.6% and 53.3%. The combination of early phase ECG and cardiac injury markers identified 70.9% patients with ACS（the specificity being 90.7%）. The mortality of group 3 was higher compared with group 4（69.6% vs 53.3%）, however the P value was more than 0.05 and didn＇ t show significant statistical difference. The correlation analysis found the number of the traditional risk factors had a significant positive correlation （r= 0.202, P = 0.044） with the number of stenosis being more than 50% of the artery diameter. Multiple linear regression showed the hypertension had a significant correlation with the number of the diseased regions（P= 0.014）. Conclusions：The risk stratification based on the symptom, ECG, cardiac injury markers and accompanying traditional risk factors is both important and available in practice. It is unsuitable for patients with a normal ECG and cardiac injury markers to differentiate ACS from non-cardiac chest pain relying only on the number of the accompanying traditional risk factors. However we found the number of the risk factors can indicate the disease severity.
文摘Objective: The objective of this study was to compare the efficacy of 0.5% ropivacaine and 0.25% bupivacaine for parasternal intercostal block for postoperative analgesia in children undergoing cardiac surgery. Design: A randomized, controlled, prospective, double blind study. Setting: A tertiary care teaching hospital. Participants: One Hundred children scheduled for cardiac surgery through a median sternotomy were divided into 3 groups of at least 33 children each, receiving either ropivacaine, bupivacaine or saline (control). Interventions: A bilateral parasternal block performed either with 0.5% ropivacaine or 0.25% bupiacaine or 0.9% saline with 5 doses of 0.5 mL on each side in the 2nd to 6th parasternal intercostal spaces 1 to 1.5 cm lateral to the sternal edge, before sternal wound closure. Measurements and Main Results: The time to extubation was significantly less in children administered the parasternal blocks with ropivacaine or bupivacaine compared to the saline (control) group. The pain scores were lower and comparable in the ropivacaine and bupivacaine groups compared to the saline group. The cumulative fentanyl dose requirement over a 24-hour period was higher in the saline group than the ropivacaine (p < 0.001) and bupivacaine group. No side effects were observed in any of the children. Conclusions: Parasternal blocks either with ropivacaine or bupivacaine appear to be a simple, safe, and useful technique for supplementation of postoperative analgesia in children undergoing cardiac surgery with a median sternotomy.
