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Background: Awareness during anesthesia is a major anesthetic concern. Depth of anesthesia is commonly assessed in clinical practice by the patient’s clinical signs and symptoms such as blood pressure, heart rate variability, and body movement. At present, many studies have focused on qCON monitoring for sedative depth, but only a few studies have focused on qNOX monitoring for analgesic depth. Aims and Objectives: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the relative efficacy of qCON and qNOX versus commonly used vital signs such as blood pressure and heart rate in monitoring the anesthetic depth and analgesia. Materials and Methods: A total of 100 patients of either sex and of ASA Physical status I & II, scheduled for urogenital surgeries, were selected and randomly placed into two groups. Group A was monitored by conventional clinical technique and Group B was monitored by qCON and qNOX indices. The primary outcome was the total dose of propofol and fentanyl required to maintain the depth of anesthesia and analgesia. The secondary outcomes were propofol and fentanyl adjustment frequency, infusion duration, and quality of recovery from anesthesia. Results: Results showed statistically significant differences between the two groups in mean dose of both propofol (P=0.000) and fentanyl (P=0.006), adjustment frequency of both propofol (P=0.000) and fentanyl (P=0.010), time required to voluntary eye-opening (P=0.000) and extubation time (P=0.000) and visual analog scale score (P=0.000). There was no statistically significant difference found in infusion duration (P=0.317) and Ramsay Sedation Score (P=0.709) between the groups. Conclusion: Using the qCON and qNOX indices, an anesthesiologist can monitor the depth of anesthesia and analgesia more effectively and can adjust the anesthetic or analgesic drug dosing in a better possible way with lesser requirement of drugs than with conventional clinical monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Perineural dexamethasone gives promising results in prolonging duration of analgesia in brachial plexus block. Doses between 1 to 10 mg have been used but the optimum dose is not yet settled. Aim: To compare the analgesic efficacy of two low doses of dexamethasone in Ultrasonography (USG)-guided brachial plexus block for planned upper limb surgery. Materials and Methods: A double-blind randomised clinical trial was conducted with 126 adult patients of either sex, randomised in equal numbers to 2 mg and 4 mg dexamethasone groups, the steroid being administered in conjunction with 0.5% levobupivacaine. Time to onset of sensory and motor blocks, duration of analgesia, duration of motor block, total consumption of analgesics in the first 24 hours postoperative period, haemodynamic parameters and features of neurotoxicity were compared. Tramadol 50mg intravenous was permitted as rescue analgesic. Results: No significant differences in onset of sensory and motor blocks were encountered. Duration of sensory block with 4 mg {median (Interquartile range); 1080 (900-1140) min} clearly exceeded that with 2 mg {840 (720-960) min} (p-value<0.001) dexamethasone. Duration of motor block was also greater with 4 mg dexamethasone {1080 (1020-1170) versus 870 (810-990)min} (p-value<0.001). Total analgesic consumption in first 24 hours was 225 (175-250) mg versus 100 (75-200) mg in 2 mg and 4 mg groups respectively (p-value<0.001). No features of neurotoxicity were encountered in either group. Conclusion: Perineural dexamethasone 4 mg gives better results as analgesic adjuvant to bupivacaine compared to 2mg in brachial plexus block for upper limb surgery without increasing adverse effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Laryngoscopy and endotracheal intubation during general anaesthesia are associated with haemodynamic surges which can be detrimental, particularly if there is preexisting hypertension or cardiovascular disease. Intravenous (i.v.) labetalol, a β-adrenergic blocker with additional α1- adrenoceptor blocking activity, and clonidine, a centrally acting α2 agonist, are known to attenuate this haemodynamic response. Aim: To compare the effects of i.v. labetalol and clonidine in attenuating haemodynamic changes during laryngoscopy and intubation in controlled hypertensive patients. Materials and Methods: This single centre, parallel-group, double-blind, randomised clinical trial was conducted in the Surgery Operation Theater (OT) of Midnapore Medical College, District Paschim Medinipur, West Bengal, India, from February 2018 to August 2019. The study included 90 adult patients of either sex, who were randomly allocated to receive either clonidine 1 mcg/kg or labetalol 0.15 mg/kg by intravenous route. After recording baseline parameters, patients were preoxygenated with 100% oxygen for 3 min and the study drug was given 5 min prior to induction. Heart Rate (HR), Systolic Blood Pressure (SBP) and Diastolic Blood Pressure (DBP) and the rate pressure product were recorded prior to induction, at the time of intubation and 1, 3, 5, and 10 min after intubation. General anaesthesia maintenance was done in a similar manner in both groups. Two-sample t-test was used to assess significance of difference in means between independent samples. Fisher's exact test was employed for comparing categorical data. Analysis was two-tailed and p-value<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Both the groups were evenly matched at baseline with respect to age and sex as well as standard anthropometric parameters (p-value>0.05). Both drugs were able to attenuate the expected rise in HR following intubation but labetalol was more effective than clonidine throughout the postintubation period. SBP and DBP were comparable between the two groups at baseline but underwent greater attenuation in the labetalol group at intubation and subsequent measurements. The differences were around 10 bpm for HR, 20-30 mmHg for SBP and 10 mmHg for DBP, in favour of labetalol. Adverse events like bradycardia, hypotension, sedation or undesirable ECG changes were not encountered. Conclusion: Intravenous labetalol is more effective than i.v. clonidine in controlling haemodynamic changes during laryngoscopy and intubation in controlled hypertensive patients undergoing general anaesthesia without any complications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Byline: Baisakhi. Laha, Avijit. Hazra Labetalol, a combined alfa and beta-adrenergic receptor antagonist, is used as an antihypertensive drug. We report a case of an acute rise in blood pressure [...]

Byline: Richeek. Pal, Baisakhi. Laha, Sabyasachi. Nandy, Rajasree. Biswas Sir, Central venous catheters (CVC) are traditionally used for access in the intensive care unit setting and in burn patients for [...]

Byline: Baisakhi. Laha, Avijit. Hazra, S. Mallick Objectives: Incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV), without active intervention, following laparoscopic cholecystectomy is unacceptably high. We evaluated the effectiveness of intravenous [...]

Byline: Baisakhi. Laha, Rajib. Guha, Avijit. Hazra We report a case of neutropenic ulceration in a 42-year-old woman receiving azathioprine for pemphigus vulgaris. She developed multiple indolent ulcers involving the [...]

Byline: Avijit. Hazra, Baisakhi. Laha Tuberculosis (TB) of the bones and joints is rampant in India with the dorsolumbar spine as the most common site of osseous involvement. For diagnosis, [...]

Aim: To compare the post-operative analgesic effect of of buprenorphine 20 μg/h patch with diclofenac 75 mg intramuscular injection following upper abdominal surgery under general anesthesia (GA). Materials and Methods: An open-label, randomized, controlled trial (CTRI/2018/03/012694) was conducted with adult subjects of either sex, undergoing planned major upper abdominal surgery under GA. Preoperative medication regimen and anesthesia protocol were uniform for all patients. Buprenorphine patch was applied to a hairless area of the chest or upper arm 12 h before surgery. Diclofenac 75 mg was injected into the deltoid muscle just after extubation. Postoperatively, vital signs were monitored along with Ramsay sedation scale (RSS) score. Postoperative analgesia was assessed using visual analog scale (VAS) scoring, at 4-h interval for the first 12 h and then 12-hourly for the next 2 days. Tramadol 2 mg/kg intravenous was permitted as a rescue analgesic. Results: Each arm had 35 patients without dropouts. The groups remained comparable in VAS pain score at all time points. However, with buprenorphine, although VAS score declined over time, the reduction attained statistical significance in comparison to the baseline (4 h) VAS score only at 72 h. In contrast, with diclofenac, VAS score achieved statistically significant reduction from 8 h onward and this was maintained throughout. In the buprenorphine arm, 21 patients (60.00%) required rescue analgesia in contrast to 10 (28.57%) on diclofenac (P = 0.016). Vital parameters and RSS remained essentially unchanged in both groups. Conclusion: Although the primary outcome measure was comparable between the groups, the pattern of rescue analgesia use suggests that postoperative analgesia experience with buprenorphine patch was less satisfactory than diclofenac injection in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]