We investigated the influence of mild hypothermic cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) on the dose requirements of cisatracurium or rocuronium used as a continuous infusion. We studied eight patients given cisatracurium and nine given rocuronium. They were ASA class III and IV and scheduled for elective coronary artery bypass grafting. Neuromuscular transmission was monitored electromyographically. Aft...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the feasibility, efficacy, and cost of outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) in the treatment of osteomyelitis. SUBJECTS 39 patients with an osteomyelitis requiring parenterally administered antibiotics for more than 4 weeks, and able to receive antibiotics at home. METHODS All patients had a totally implanted catheter. Antibiotics were administered by co...

We present a new paradigm for intraoperative closed-loop control of analgesia in humans. The infusion rate of the opiate alfentanil is the manipulated variable which is administered intravenously through a Computer Controlled Infusion Pump (CCIP). The two regulated outputs are the patient’s Mean Arterial Pressure (MAP) and the drug concentration in the plasma. Maintaining MAP within acceptable ...

I f you want something broken, give it to your kid. That truism applies to many items, from toys to technology. The article describing the results of the Pediatric Lead Extractability and Survival Evaluation (PLEASE) study by Atallah et al 1 in this issue of Circulation provides sobering but important evidence that this also applies to implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) leads. Most IC...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES Indoor residual spraying (IRS) is a proven tool to reduce visceral leishmaniasis vectors in endemic villages. In India IRS is being done with stirrup pumps, whereas Nepal, Bangladesh, and other countries use compression pumps. The present study was conducted with the objectives to compare the efficiency, cost and user friendliness of stirrup and compression pumps. METH...

Patient controlled analgesia (PCA) and Patient-controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA) pumps are methods of pain control with complex smart infusion devices and are widely used in hospitals. Smart PCA/PCEA pumps can be programmed with the dose and rate of medications within pre-set ranges. However, adverse effects have been reported associated with these pumps' use. In this paper, we describe a pr...

Postoperative analgesia, once established initially by the titration method, is sustained with a flexible regime of papaveretum, infused continuously with a portable syringe pump. The initial analgesic requirement (TAR) for titrating the pain threshold level, was between 4 and 10 mg of papaveretum and the maintenance dose between 1 and 1-66 mg/hr for the first 24 hr and between 083 and 1 mg/hr ...

This paper reports the investigation of a micro-gas chromatography (μGC) system that utilizes an array of miniaturized motionless Knudsen pumps (KPs) as well as microfabricated separation columns and optical detectors. A prototype system was built to achieve a flow rate of 1 mL min(-1) and 0.26 mL min(-1) for helium and dry air, respectively, when they were used as carrier gas. This system was ...

We have previously reported that microthrottle pumps (MTPs) display the capacity to pump solid phase suspensions such as polystyrene beads which prove challenging to most microfluidic pumps. In this paper we report employing a linear microthrottle pump (LMTP) to pump whole, undiluted, anticoagulated, human venous blood at 200 μl min(-1) with minimal erythrocyte lysis and no observed pump blocka...

Intravenous (IV) medications are vital in the management of hospitalized patients. Inpatients frequently receive several IV medications concurrently, and these are commonly delivered with infusion pump systems. In particular, critically ill patients receive potent "high-alert" IV drugs, many with narrow safety margins requiring careful nursing titration. However, while intravenous medications h...