Search

Early recognition of the Marfan Syndrome and knowledge of its potentially lethal complications facilitates successful treatment of these individuals. It is through a joint effort by many specialist physicians such as the obstetrician, cardiologist, and anesthesiologist that these patients can be managed safely through pregnancy, labor, and delivery.

OPG-300 is a reliable noninvasive method of detecting hemodynamically significant stenoses of the internal carotid circulation. An important limitation of the method is that patients with systemic blood pressure greater than 160 mm Hg cannot be studied; in our laboratory this represented 55 percent of the patients referred for testing. The addition of the 500 mm Hg vacuum modification now allows us to reliably test 95 percent of patients referred to our laboratory for evaluation of the extracranial cerebrovascular circulation.

In summary, many surgical procedures may be safely and comfortably performed utilizing regional anesthesia if only a few guidelines are followed as to choice and usage of local anesthetics. The success of a regional block will always be dependent upon correct needle placement by an experienced physician with good technical skills. However, the safety of the patient is not solely a function of experience. Modern local anesthetic preparations are reliable enough and simple enough to use that all physicians should be capable of achieving optimal patient safety at all times. If placed in a position which seems to require unfamiliar knowledge or expertise, the practitioner need only seek a consultant anesthesiologist for assistance. Plastic surgery is recognized as a specialty that frequently utilizes local anesthetics for office and outpatient procedures. The manner in which these drugs are used or abused determines their clinical reputation as well as that of the physician. It is important to promote a correct understanding of local anesthetic compounds, not only among ourselves as physicians, but also among our patients, who are becoming ever more knowledgeable of medical practice as time goes on.

A nontender, nonpulsatile large anterior neck mass was found at operation to be an atherosclerotic aneurysm of the vertebral artery, an extremely rare condition. Proximal control and distal control were obtained and the aneurysm was excised. Aneurysms of the vertebral artery are infrequent but well-defined complications in connective tissue disorders such as the Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and they can develop subsequent to penetrating neck trauma. However, no cases of atherosclertic vertebral artery aneurysms have been reported recently in the English-language literature. The case presented illustrates that this rare condition should be considered in all patients who have neck masses of undetermined etiology.

Clinical progress and results were reviewed in 100 consecutive patients who underwent extra-anatomic bypass procedures for brachiocephalic and aortoiliac occlusive disease during the past 15 years. Of 113 procedures in this group, extra-anatomic bypass of the brachiocephalic vessels, axillo-femoral bypass, and femorofemoral bypass were performed. Although these procedures were performed in high-risk patients to avoid intrathoracic and intra-abdominal reconstruction or to circumvent undesirable anatomic areas, a low operative mortality was achieved. Symptomatic improvement, augmented Doppler ankle pressure index, and high limb-salvage rate were noted. Life-table analysis has confirmed prolonged five-year graft patency. The suspected high-risk characteristic in this group was corroborated by high progressive mortality observed particularly after axillo-femoral bypass and was due primarily to the severity of associated diseases. Analysis of the late results of extraanatomic bypass confirms the safety and effectiveness of this procedure in poor-risk patients.

The reproducibility of determination of stenosis of the carotid artery by bruit spectral analysis was studied in 20 patients with 29 cervical bruits. The tests were performed with the Spectraview, a dedicated microcomputer which performs the analysis by the method of Lees. The estimated residual lumen was calculated from the break frequency of the power spectrum at peak systole. Each patient was studied on five separate occasions during a week. The lowest day-to-day variation was found with those lesions with the smallest residual lumen diameter. Six patients with wide ranges had major swings of blood pressure or pulse. When the bruit analysis results from days with similar blood pressure and pulse were compared, there was a low variability. The lesser stenoses had a wider spread of break frequency, but in this range, the variation represented only small differences in lumen diameter. The results of this study indicate that bruit spectral analysis can estimate the residual lumen diameter with an acceptable day-to-day variation.

The evaluation of clinical reports on vascular disease is often made difficult by variations in descriptive terms, clinical classification, and outcome criteria. In 1983 the Joint Council of the Society for Vascular Surgery and the North American Chapter of the International Society for Cardiovascular Surgery created the Ad Hoc Committee on Reporting Standards to address these problems and recommend solutions. Some general problems were addressed in the initial report dealing with lower extremity ischemia. This article concerns clinical standards for reports dealing with cerebrovascular disease, suggests a scheme for clinical classification, and recommends standardized reporting practices for grading risk factors, angiographic and other diagnostic findings, and the results and complications of therapeutic intervention.

The results of OPG studies performed on 121 patients between 1974 and 1977 are compared with the results of biplane angiograms. By adding criteria based on the ratio of AOP:BAP, the overall accuracy was increased from 76.9 to 91.7 per cent. This improvement was obtained by establishing criteria that identified bilateral significant lesions. The results have confirmed the value of OPG in noninvasive assessment of carotid artery disease.

Continuous electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring was used during 213 carotid endarterectomies in 157 patients to identify cerebral ischemia. General anesthesia was used for all patients. An intraluminal shunt was not used routinely, but was inserted in 23 operations when EEG abnormalities associated with ischemia appeared. EEG changes occurred in 31 operations (14.5 percent). Four patterns of abnormal recordings were identified and are discussed. Six patients developed ischemic EEG changes in association with hypotension during endarterectomy. In two of these patients changes appeared with a blood pressure drop of only 20 mm. Hg below preoperative levels. Four patients with internal carotid artery back pressures of 75 to 100 mm. Hg developed EEG abnormalities which disappeared after shunt insertion. Our experience emphasizes the value of continuous EEG monitoring in detecting inadequate cerebral perfusion.

The consequences of failure in 235 femoropopliteal and femorotibial operations are reviewed and compared with the benefits of success so that an accurate perspective of risk-benefit analysis can be achieved. In 72 operations performed for claudication, 10 grafts thrombosed early. The cost included nine reoperations to achieve eight patent grafts and a 12 day average increase in hospital stay. There were no deaths. The benefit obtained was 70 of 72 (97 percent) asymptomatic limbs. In 163 grafts placed for limb salvage, there were 58 initial thromboses. Reoperation in 28 produced an additional 14 patent grafts. The cost of thrombosis was an increase in mortality from 5.6 to 10.7 percent, a 12 day average increase in hospital stay, and raising of preoperative predicted amputation level from below to above the knee in 11 patients with thrombosed grafts whose distal anastomoses were below the knee. This contrasted with a 73 percent limb salvage rate in 104 patients whose preoperative predicted amputation level was below the knee, and a 54 percent limb salvage and a 12 percent lowering of amputation level in 39 patients whose preoperative amputation level was above the knee. Of patients with patent grafts, 89 percent achieved limb salvage. We conclude that the benefits of success in attempted vascular reconstruction for threatened limb loss far outweigh the risks of failure and that the combined results were far superior to the expected outcome in comparable patients undergoing primary amputation.

Analysis of learning style, a relatively new technique in the field of education, is being used in grade school and college, as well as in graduate and postgraduate training programs. The trend in the health professions to emphasize continuing education has created a need for individual practitioners to understand the principles of self-education. Analysis of learning style is useful in this regard. It also provides a basis for teaching task-specific cognitive skills to those in residency training. In this article we review the conceptual evolution of learning style analysis, especially its use in the health professions, and describe the Kolb Learning Style Inventory (LSI), which we use to study 205 anesthesia personnel.

Learning style analysis is being used at many educational levels to individualize the instructional process. The Kolb Learning Style Inventory (LSI) in particular has been employed to determine the learning preferences of medical students and physicians in family practice, internal medicine, and anesthesiology. This investigation was undertaken to discover whether there exists a characteristic learning profile for surgery as a specialty. The Kolb LSI was administered to 39 surgical personnel. Kolb's Converger was the preferred learning style type of the study group (46%). Accommodator (26%) and Assimilator (20%) were next, followed by Diverger (8%). These results suggest that there is an identifiable surgical learning style that can provide a referential basis for teaching and counseling during residency training.

The surgical correction of intermittent exotropia occasionally results in a monofixational sensory pattern. Stereopsis as a measure of bifixation was studied preoperatively and postoperatively in 39 cases of intermittent exotropia. Of 26 patients with bifixation, 25 remained so after surgery. Of 13 patients with monofixation, 11 remained unchanged by surgery, one improved, and one lost all binocularity. The presence of preoperative monofixational intermittent exotropia, to explain a monofixation result from intermittent exotropia surgery, is proposed.

A group of 145 high-risk patients who underwent angiography after administration of the nonionic contrast agent iohexol were monitored for the development of acute renal dysfunction. The results in this group were compared with those in 202 high-risk historical control subjects who had undergone angiography after administration of ionic contrast material. All patients in both groups received similar pre- and postangiographic treatment. A greater number of patients in the ionic group had preexisting renal disease, were of advanced age, and had received large volumes of contrast material. Acute renal dysfunction occurred in 20 of the 202 (10%) patients in the ionic group, compared with eight of the 145 (5.5%) patients in the nonionic group; this difference is not statistically significant. Five patients in the ionic group, but none of the patients in the nonionic group, ultimately required dialysis; this difference is not statistically significant. The findings suggest that a randomized trial in high-risk patients should be undertaken before a clinical advantage of the nonionic contrast agent iohexol with regard to renal function can be assumed.

There have been four cases in which there has been bleeding through PTFE grafts at the time of implantation. In each case the initial leaking through needle holes stopped completely within 5 mins. About 10 mins after the graft had been opened there appeared leaking through the interstices of the graft (without further bleeding at the needle holes). Protamine administration and topical application of haemostatic agents failed to arrest the process. In each case the bleeding gradually subsided over a period of 60 mins. In reviewing each of these cases no abnormality or unusual feature could be found to explain the bleeding encountered. Routine preoperative coagulation studies were normal. All grafts were handled according to manufacturer's recommendations. Portions of two of the grafts were analysed by light and electron microscopy and were in all ways similar to normal grafts. The etiology of this unusual complication has not been determined, but the process appears to be self-limited, stopping within an hour when it does occur.