Perioperative approach to precapillary pulmonary hypertension in non-cardiac non-obstetric surgery

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) confers a significant challenge in perioperative care. It is associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. A considerable amount of information about management of patients with PH has emerged over the past decade. However, there is still a paucity of information to guide perioperative evaluation and management of these patients. Yet, a satisfactory outcome is feasible by focusing on elaborate disease-adapted anaesthetic management of this complex disease with a multidisciplinary approach. The cornerstone of the peri-anaesthetic management of patients with PH is preservation of right ventricular (RV) function with attention on maintaining RV preload, contractility and limiting increase in RV afterload at each stage of the patient's perioperative care. Pre-anaesthetic evaluation, choice of anaesthetic agents, proper fluid management, appropriate ventilation, correction of hypoxia, hypercarbia, acid–base balance and pain control are paramount in this regard. Essentially, the perioperative management of PH patients is intricate and multifaceted. Unfortunately, a comprehensive evidence-based guideline is lacking to navigate us through this complex process. We conducted a literature review on patients with PH with a focus on the perioperative evaluation and suggest management algorithms for these patients during non-cardiac, non-obstetric surgery.

Obstetric anaesthesia and analgesia

This chapter discusses the anaesthetic management of the pregnant patient, for labour analgesia as well as surgical intervention. It begins with a description of the physiological and pharmacological changes of pregnancy. It describes methods of labour analgesia, including remifentanil, and epidural analgesia and its complications, such as post dural puncture headache (PDPH). It describes anaesthesia for Caesarean section (both regional and general); failed intubation; antacid prophylaxis; postoperative analgesia; retained placenta; in utero fetal death; hypertensive disease of pregnancy (pre-eclampsia, eclampsia and the hypertension, elevated liver enzymes and low platelets (HELLP) syndrome); massive obstetric haemorrhage; placenta praevia and morbidly adherent placenta (placenta accreta, increta and percreta); amniotic fluid embolism (AFE); maternal sepsis, and maternal resuscitation. It discusses comorbidity in pregnancy such as obesity and cardiac disease, and the patient who requires non-obstetric surgery while pregnant. It provides information on safe prescribing in pregnancy and breast-feeding.

Topical Rifamycin Prophylaxis in Gynecological and Obstetric Surgery

OBJECTIVE: Antibiotic prophylaxis is one of the most important steps to reduce surgical site infections. First-generation cephalosporin (cefazolin) is used prophylactically in the majority of operations. Rifamycin is a broad-spectrum semisynthetic antibiotic that is bactericidal against gram (+) and gram (˗) microorganisms. To the best of our knowledge, there are no studies on the use of rifamycin in antibiotic prophylaxis. In this study, we aimed to analyze whether there is a difference between the use of only cefazolin and only rifamycin in terms of surgical site infections. STUDY DESIGN: One hundred patients were included in this case-control study during the last quarter period of 2017. These patients (n=100) were divided into two groups according to their antibiotic use; 50 patients who received only 1 g cefazolin constituted Group 1, 50 patients who received only 250 mg topical rifamycin over the incision line based on surgeon’s preference constituted Group 2. RESULTS: The use of prophylactic topical rifamycin reduced the incidence of wound infection. compared with cefazolin. Surgical site infection was detected in 5 (10%) of the patients who received cefazolin, whereas surgical site infection was not observed in patients who received rifamycin (p=0.022). CONCLUSIONS: The use of topical rifamycin is effective but does not imply that systemic antibiotics should replace prophylaxis. The use of rifamycin would aid in systemic antibiotic prophylaxis.