The Women in Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology Special Interest Group: What Can the Lessons of One Anesthesiology Affinity Group Tell Us About How to Build Impactful Professional Communities?

The Women In Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology (WICTA), a special interest group of the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists, has been highly successful in mobilizing WICTA, a historically underrepresented and marginalized group in the subspecialty, and in supporting real and meaningful change in the professional community. The experience of WICTA as a professional affinity group in impacting a professional organization to diversify, evolve, and become more responsive to a wider professional audience has important lessons for other professional organizations. This article discusses the recent history of affinity organizations in anesthesiology, the benefits they offer professional organizations, and the strategies that have been used to effectively motivate change in professional communities. These strategies include engaging a strong advisory board, identifying the need of constituents, creating additional opportunities for networking and membership, addressing gaps in professional development, and aligning goals with those of the larger national organization. WICTA is just one example of the potential opportunities that affinity groups offer to professional societies and organizations for expanding their reach, enhancing their impact on physicians in their target audience, and achieving organizational missions.

Postoperative but not preoperative depression is associated with cognitive impairment after cardiac surgery: exploratory analysis of data from a randomized trial.

BACKGROUND: In this study we hypothesize that depression is associated with perioperative neurocognitive dysfunction and altered quality of life one month after surgery. METHODS: Data were obtained as part of a study evaluating cerebral autoregulation monitoring for targeting arterial pressure during cardiopulmonary bypass. Neuropsychological testing was performed before surgery and one month postoperatively. Testing included the Beck Depression Inventory, a depression symptoms questionnaire (0-63 scale), as well as anxiety and quality of life assessments. Depression was defined as a Beck Depression Inventory score > 13. RESULTS: Beck Depression data were available from 320 patients of whom cognitive domain endpoints were available from 88-98% at baseline and 69-79% after surgery. This range in end-points data was due to variability in the availability of each neuropsychological test results between patients. Depression was present in 50 (15.6%) patients before surgery and in 43 (13.4%) after surgery. Baseline depression was not associated with postoperative domain-specific neurocognitive function compared with non-depressed patients. Those with depression one month after surgery, though, had poorer performance on tests of attention (p = 0.017), memory (p = 0.049), verbal fluency (p = 0.010), processing speed (p = 0.017), and fine motor speed (p = 0.014). Postoperative neurocognitive dysfunction as a composite outcome occurred in 33.3% versus 14.5% of patients with and without postoperative depression (p = 0.040). Baseline depression was associated with higher anxiety and lower self-ratings on several quality of life domains, these measures were generally more adversely affected by depression one month after surgery. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this exploratory analysis suggests that preoperative depression is not associated with perioperative neurocognitive dysfunction, but depression after cardiac surgery may be associated with impairment in in several cognitive domains, a higher frequency of the composite neurocognitive outcome, and altered quality of life. TRIAL REGISTRATION: www. CLINICALTRIALS: gov, NCT00981474 (parent study).

Neurocognitive, Quality of Life, and Behavioral Outcomes for Patients With Covert Stroke After Cardiac Surgery: Exploratory Analysis of Data From a Prospectively Randomized Trial.

BACKGROUND: Asymptomatic brain ischemic injury detected with diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DWI) is reported in more than one-half of patients after cardiac surgery. There are conflicting findings on whether DWI-detected covert stroke is associated with neurocognitive dysfunction after surgery, and it is unclear whether such ischemic injury affects quality of life or behavioral outcomes. The purpose of this study was to perform exploratory analysis on whether covert stroke after cardiac surgery is associated with delayed neurocognitive recovery 1 month after surgery, impaired quality of life, anxiety, or depression. METHODS: Analysis of data collected in a prospectively randomized study in patients undergoing cardiac surgery testing whether basing mean arterial pressure (MAP) targets during cardiopulmonary bypass to be above the lower limit of cerebral autoregulation versus usual practices reduces the frequency of adverse neurological outcomes. A neuropsychological testing battery was administered before surgery and then 1 month later. Patients underwent brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) between postoperative days 3 and 5. The primary outcome was DWI-detected ischemic lesion; the primary end point was change from baseline in domain-specific neurocognitive Z scores 1 month after surgery. Secondary outcomes included a composite indicator of delayed neurocognitive recovery, quality of life measures, state and trait anxiety, and Beck Depression Inventory scores. RESULTS: Of the 164 patients with postoperative MRI data, clinical stroke occurred in 10 patients. Of the remaining 154 patients, 85 (55.2%) had a covert stroke. There were no statistically significant differences for patients with or without covert stroke in the change from baseline in Z scores in any of the cognitive domains tested adjusted for sex, baseline cognitive score, and randomization treatment arm. The frequency of delayed neurocognitive recovery (no covert stroke, 15.1%; covert stroke, 17.6%; P = .392), self-reported quality of life measurements, anxiety rating, or depression scores were not different between those with or without DWI ischemic injury. CONCLUSIONS: More than one-half of patients undergoing cardiac surgery demonstrated covert stroke. In this exploratory analysis, covert stroke was not found to be significantly associated with neurocognitive dysfunction 1 month after surgery; evidence of impaired quality of life, anxiety, or depression, albeit a type II error, cannot be excluded.

Cerebral Neuromonitoring During Cardiac Surgery: A Critical Appraisal With an Emphasis on Near-Infrared Spectroscopy.

Neurological complications of cardiac surgery have a large effect on patient outcomes. In this review, the value of several modes of central nervous system monitoring for improving perioperative care is critiqued. The electroencephalogram (EEG) has been used as a means for detecting brain ischemia. Even though EEG changes are specific for ischemia, the reliability is tempered by many confounding factors. The effectiveness of the processed EEG for ensuring amnesia during surgery is controversial, but it may have value for optimizing anesthetic dose and thus reducing the risk for delirium. Transcranial Doppler may be beneficial in confirming flow to both cerebral hemispheres during antegrade cerebral perfusion such as during aortic arch surgery and in detecting cerebral emboli. Transcranial Doppler can be used for monitoring cerebral autoregulation, allowing for individualization of blood pressure targets during surgery. Measures of adequacy of cerebral oxygen balance include jugular bulb venous oxygen saturation and near-infrared spectroscopy monitoring. Both monitors have limitations that reduce the sensitivity for detecting brain ischemia. Because near-infrared spectroscopy-measured regional cerebral oxygen saturation does not distinguish arterial from venous blood, these measurements reflect the adequacy of oxygen delivery versus demand. Over short periods, filtered regional cerebral oxygen saturation data may provide a clinically feasible method of monitoring cerebral autoregulation that overcomes many limitations of transcranial Doppler. Ongoing studies have demonstrated that the latter methodology for determining perioperative blood pressure targets has large potential for reducing organ injury from cardiac surgery.

Women and Underrepresented Minorities in Academic Anesthesiology.

The demographics of the United States is changing with 51% of the population being female, and 32% of the population identifying as an underrepresented minority (URM, ie, African American/black, Hispanic/Latino, American Indian/Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander). Women and URMs have been historically underrepresented in medicine and in academic anesthesiology. This article provides an overview of the current status of women and URM faculty in academic anesthesiology and provides a framework for academic advancement. Throughout the text, the terms woman/women are used, as opposed to female, as the terms woman/women refer to gender, and female refers to biological sex.

Evidence for a role of developmental genes in the origin of obesity and body fat distribution.

Obesity, especially central obesity, is a hereditable trait associated with a high risk for development of diabetes and metabolic disorders. Combined gene expression analysis of adipocyte- and preadipocyte-containing fractions from intraabdominal and subcutaneous adipose tissue of mice revealed coordinated depot-specific differences in expression of multiple genes involved in embryonic development and pattern specification. These differences were intrinsic and persisted during in vitro culture and differentiation. Similar depot-specific differences in expression of developmental genes were observed in human subcutaneous versus visceral adipose tissue. Furthermore, in humans, several genes exhibited changes in expression that correlated closely with body mass index and/or waist/hip ratio. Together, these data suggest that genetically programmed developmental differences in adipocytes and their precursors in different regions of the body play an important role in obesity, body fat distribution, and potential functional differences between internal and subcutaneous adipose tissue.

Isostructural or not? Adducts of some aryltin halides with (E)-1,2-bis(4-pyridyl)ethene.

The title complexes [mu-(E)-4,4'-(ethene-1,2-diyl)dipyridine-kappa(2)N:N']bis[halotris(4-methylphenyl)tin(IV)], [Sn(2)(C(7)H(7))(6)X(2)(C(12)H(10)N(2))], where halo is chloro (X = Cl) and bromo (X = Br) are isostructural. In both crystals, the molecules lie on inversion centers, and there are voids of ca 80 A(3) that could, but apparently do not, accommodate water molecules. The corresponding iodo structure (X = I) is almost, but not quite, isostructural with the other two compounds; when Br is changed to I, the length of the c axis decreases by more than 1 A and the voids are no longer large enough to accomodate any solvent molecule. The related complex [mu-(E)-4,4'-(ethene-1,2-diyl)dipyridine-kappa(2)N:N']bis[chlorotriphenyltin(IV)], [Sn(2)(C(6)H(5))(6)Cl(2)(C(12)H(10)N(2))], crystallizes in a related structure, but the molecules lie on general rather than on special positions. The molecular structures of the four complexes are similar, but the conformation of the phenyl derivative is approximately eclipsed rather than staggered.