Adjuvant analgesics in spinal surgery.

Peri- and postoperative pain control can present a challenge to any doctor, particularly in the setting of spinal surgery. The use of adjuvant pain agents and multimodal analgesia is changing the face of modern anaesthesia and offering clinicians more avenues to control perioperative pain. This article discusses the use of adjuvant medications and some of the evidence surrounding their use in spinal surgery.

Advancing Nursing Practice: Management of Neuropathic Pain With Capsaicin 8% Without Physician Supervision.

PURPOSE/AIMS: The purpose of this study was to examine the management of patient's neuropathic pain with capsaicin 8% in a nurse-led clinic when administered by 1 registered advanced nurse practitioner without physician supervision. DESIGN: A longitudinal, single-group, descriptive research design was used to assess pain scores and quality of life 3 times over 3 months after treatment. METHODS: Patients with a diagnosis of neuropathic pain were assessed and treated with capsaicin 8% by 1 advanced nurse practitioner with prescriptive authority in a nurse-led clinic. Pain scores were collected at baseline, and self-assessed pain, activity level, and quality of life were assessed at 1 week, 4 weeks, and 3 months after treatment. Twenty-four patients were recruited, and data were analyzed using Friedman's test. In post hoc analysis, Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used with Bonferroni correction. RESULTS: Pain scores differed from pretreatment to posttreatment at each of the 3 time points, at rest (χ3 = 20.54, P = .001) and on movement (χ3 = 23.644, P = .001), and remained significant after Bonferroni correction. Overall, 62.5% (n = 15) of patients achieved at least a 30% reduction in self-reported pain at rest from pretreatment to 3 months, and 54% (n = 13) achieved the same reduction in pain on movement. Most improvements in patient's quality of life occurred between 1 and 4 weeks. Patient satisfaction was high, with 83% stating that they would be happy to have the treatment repeated. CONCLUSION: Single-dose capsaicin 8% decreased neuropathic pain after being administered in an outpatient setting by an experienced registered advanced nurse practitioner. Further multicenter research led by advanced nurse practitioners is needed to support high-quality, safe treatment of neuropathic pain with high-concentration capsaicin in nurse-led chronic pain clinics.

Left ventricular diastolic filling characteristics are not impaired but systolic performance was augmented in the early hours of experimental endotoxemia in humans.

This study was performed to determine whether endotoxemia causes diastolic cardiac dysfunction. Eleven healthy volunteers, 30 +/- 6 years of age, underwent comprehensive transthoracic echocardiographic assessment including two-dimensional, M-mode transmitral and tissue Doppler of systolic and diastolic function at baseline and at 3 and 5 h after intravenous administration of purified Escherichia coli endotoxin (4 ng/kg). Data were analyzed by analysis of variance; P values of less than 0.05 were considered significant. Endotoxin administration resulted in a hyperdynamic state characterized by decreased mean arterial pressure and significant increase in cardiac index. This was accompanied by increases in several load-dependent systolic performance indices (3 and 5 h). Robust increases in peak systolic blood pressure/end-systolic volume index, one of the relatively load-independent contractility parameter, were also observed at 3 h after endotoxin administration. Transmitral peak early velocity (E), which represents early filling, significantly increased at 3 h after infusion. Late diastolic velocity (A), which represents atrial contraction, significantly increased at 3 and 5 h after infusion. The E/A ratio indicative of delayed relaxation significantly decreased due to increases in A (transmitral) and A (tissue Doppler) at 3 and 5 h after infusion. As expected, endotoxin infusion resulted in a hyperdynamic state associated with increases in systolic function indices including endocardial systolic velocities. The observed decreases in E/A (transmitral) and E/A (tissue Doppler) ratio were primarily due to increases in A and A. Moreover, isovolumic relaxation time and time constant for left ventricular relaxation, a load-independent parameter for ventricular relaxation, remained unchanged at 3 and 5 h after endotoxin infusion. Therefore, our findings are more likely due to enhanced atrial contractility resulting from increased sympathetic activity in response to reduction in left ventricular afterload and not due to altered diastolic filling characteristics.