Retrospective audit of outcome of regional anesthesia for delivery in women with thrombocytopenia

Evaluating hemostatic thresholds for neuraxial anesthesia in adults with hemorrhagic disorders and tendencies: A scoping review

Neuraxial anesthesia can be complicated by spinal or epidural hematoma and may result in permanent neurologic injury. There is a paucity of literature characterizing this serious complication in patients with congenital and acquired hemorrhagic disorders or tendencies. The objective of this scoping review was to describe the hemostatic laboratory parameters where neuraxial anesthesia has been administered with and without spinal and epidural hematoma in patients with preexisting hemorrhagic disorders and tendencies, including immune thrombocytopenia, gestational thrombocytopenia, thrombocytopenia associated with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, platelet function disorders, von Willebrand disease, coagulation factor deficiencies, and fibrinogen disorders. A systematic search of Ovid MEDLINE, CINAHL, Embase, Scopus, and Web of Science was performed. Two authors independently reviewed all titles, abstracts, and full texts to determine study eligibility and extract data. Qualitative synthesis of 91 studies revealed significant gaps in our understanding of the risk of spinal and epidural hematoma in patients with hemorrhagic disorders and tendencies, including few studies of males and in nonobstetric settings. Most reviewed articles were small, retrospective studies at high risk for potential bias. With such low-quality data, we were unable to provide any true estimates of the risk of spinal or epidural hematoma for these patients, nor could we attribute any specific hemostatic or laboratory values to increased risk of hematoma. There is a need both for larger and more rigorously designed and reported studies on this subject and for structured, comprehensive recommendations for safe administration and removal of neuraxial anesthesia in patients with hemorrhagic disorders and tendencies.

General Versus Regional Anesthesia for Emergency Cesarean Delivery in a High-volume High-resource Referral Center: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Objective

The choice of anesthesia for emergency cesarean delivery (CD) is one of the most important choices to make in obstetric anesthesia. In this study, we examine which type of anesthesia was used for emergency CD in our hospital, and how the choice affected the time from entry to the operation room until incision (TTI), time until delivery (TTD), and maternal/neonatal outcomes.

Methods

Retrospectively, we examined all emergency CD's performed in Shaare Zedek Medical Center between January-December 2018. Results: 1059 patients met the inclusion criteria, of which 7.7% underwent general anesthesia (GA), 36.2% - conversion from labor epidural analgesia to surgical anesthesia, 52% - spinal anesthesia and 4.1% - combined spinal epidural. We did not find a significant difference between the GA and conversion epidural groups in terms of TTI or TTD. Nevertheless, GA was found to be correlated to a high rate of blood-products requirement and ICU admission. The rate of newborns with an APGAR score of less than 7, in both first and fifth second after birth, was significantly higher in the GA group, as well as the need for NICU admission.

Conclusion

This study clearly emphasizes that the TTI are shortest when using GA or conversion of labor epidural analgesia to surgical anesthesia. Meanwhile, GA is also linked to higher rates of admissions to ICU as well as poorer neonatal outcomes compared to the other groups. Additionally, our study uncovered a low rate of GA, and relatively low rate of regional anesthesia failure, which meets the accepted standards.

Responding to amniotic fluid embolism

Amniotic fluid embolism (AFE), an uncommon disorder with a high fatality rate, is an obstetric emergency that requires swift recognition and intervention to save both the mother's life and that of her child.The high mortality rate and varying theories as to its cause make it difficult to diagnose AFE, which can occur at any point during labor and delivery, including during cesarean birth. These factors make it important for perioperative nurses to understand and recognize AFE when it occurs in the OR. Rapid delivery of the fetus is imperative for the survival of both mother and child. Monitoring and aggressively providing respiratory and circulatory support interventions are required if the mother is to survive AFE.

Current world literature

This bibliography is compiled by clinicians from the journals listed at the end of this publication. It is based on literature entered into our database between 1 February 2008 and 31 January 2009 (articles are generally added to the database about two and a half months after publication). In addition, the bibliography contains every paper annotated by reviewers; these references were obtained from a variety of bibliographic databases and published between the beginning of the review period and the time of going to press. The bibliography has been grouped into topics that relate to the reviews in this issue.