PURPOSE OF REVIEW Regional analgesia for labor pain and general anesthesia for cesarean section in the morbidly obese parturient is associated with increased maternal and perinatal complications. The purpose of this review is to describe the anesthetic management of the morbidly obese parturient. RECENT FINDINGS Compared to the lean parturient, the morbidly obese parturient has an increased l...

OBJECTIVE To quantify benefit and harm of epidural analgesia, compared with systemic opioid analgesia, in adults having surgery under general anesthesia. BACKGROUND It remains controversial whether adding epidural analgesia to general anesthesia decreases postoperative morbidity and mortality. METHODS We searched CENTRAL, EMBASE, PubMed, CINAHL, and BIOSIS till July 2012. We included random...

An alfentanil infusion was used to produce analgesia and sedation for patients undergoing extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy with the Dornier HM-4 lithotripter. This was compared to general and epidural anesthesia in a retrospective review of 197 consecutive patients. Total care time, anesthesia time, and recovery room time were shorter for the alfentanil analgesia/sedation group. The incide...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Anesthesia for total hip arthroplasty (THA) is a challenge due to the advanced age and associated diseases of patients. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether the efficacy of the nociceptive blockade, secondary hemodynamic effects, difficulty to execute the technique, and influence in intraoperative bleeding of lumbar plexus block combined with general ane...

Spinal epidural hematoma is a rare but serious neurological complication of neuraxial anesthesia. Enoxaparin sodium is a low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) for use in preventing deep venous thrombosis in patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty and total knee arthroplasty. Hemorrhage is an uncommon but documented adverse reaction when using LMWH. We report a case of epidural hematoma after l...

BACKGROUND Dwarfism is characterized by short stature. Pregnancy in women with dwarfism is uncommon and cesarean section is generally indicated for delivery. Patients with dwarfism are high-risk population for both general and regional anesthesia, let alone in an emergency surgery. CASE PRESENTATION In this case report we present a 27-year-old Chinese puerpera with dwarfism who underwent emer...

Background Epidural anesthesia is widely used for postoperative analgesia and rarely causes permanent neurological complications. We report a case of paraplegia following abdominal surgery under combined epidural/general anesthesia. Case presentation A 75-year-old woman underwent a scheduled abdominal total hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy for suspected endometrial cancer. In ...

Objective. Unilateral sensory and motor blockade is known to occur with epidural anesthesia but is rarely reported in children. The differential diagnosis should include the presence of a midline epidural septum. Case Report. We describe a case of a 16-year-old adolescent who developed repeated complete unilateral extensive epidural sensory and motor blockade with Horner's syndrome after thorac...