Proximal humeral fracture fixation: multicenter study with carbon fiber peek plate.

BACKGROUND: Locking plate fixation is a reliable treatment for many displaced proximal humeral fractures. Carbon fiber-reinforced-poly-ether-ether-ketone (CFR-PEEK) plates have recently been introduced as an alternative to traditional metallic plates. METHODS: In a multicenter study involving the Orthopedic Services of 6 Italian hospitals, 182 patients with a proximal humeral fracture were treated with a Diphos H (Lima Corporate, San Daniele del Friuli, Italy) CFR-PEEK plate, 160 of whom were followed clinically and radiographically for 2 years or more. Fractures were classified by Neer's system. The functional results were assessed by Constant and DASH scores. RESULTS: The average time to radiographic healing was 5.6 months in 158 of 160 cases. Mean Constant score was 76, and mean DASH score was 28 at 2 years. There were two nonunions (one septic and one aseptic) and 13 cases of partial (9) or massive (4) humeral head necrosis. In three of the 78 patients treated with the first-generation plates, hardware breakage happened during the operation and the plate was replaced. There was no failure among the cases treated with the thicker second-generation plate. In eight cases, there was a perforation of the humeral head by the cephalic screws. CONCLUSIONS: CFR-PEEK plates proved as reliable as metallic plates in the treatment of proximal humeral fractures. The advantages of these new devices include a better visualization of fracture reduction during intraoperative fluoroscopic assessment and easy hardware removal due to the absence of screw-plate cold fusion.

Elbow rehabilitation in traumatic pathology.

The elbow, intermediate joint of the upper limb, frequently undergoes to pathological events and is especially prone to stiffness. Rehabilitation plays an important role in recovering functional activities. For the rehabilitation team, this goal always represents a challenge, as the treatment has to be continuously modeled and calibrated on the needs of the individual patient, even many times during the same rehabilitation cycle. Containing the effects of immobilization, avoiding to excessively stress the healing tissues, satisfying specific clinical criteria before moving to the next rehabilitation stage, basing the rehabilitation plan on up-to-date clinical and scientific data that can be adapted to each patient and to his/her needs are the basic principles of the rehabilitation plan, which can be chronologically grouped into four rehabilitation stages. After summarizing the general principles of elbow treatment, the specific principles of rehabilitation after elbow fractures and elbow instability are presented, and then the rehabilitative approach to the most frequent and feared pathological conditions of the elbow, namely stiffness, is described.

Preoperative evaluation in geriatric surgery: comorbidity, functional status and pharmacological history.

The demand for elective and emergency surgery by older patients is increasing. This review examines the current practice of preoperative evaluation in geriatric anesthesia and provides an overview of new insights in this field. Preoperative anesthesia consultation is essential to examine the patient, evaluate the operative risk and plan preventive perioperative actions. Chronological age probably represents an independent risk factor. Age should not be considered an exclusion criterion from surgery per se. More than 50% of patients over 70 years old suffer from one infirmity, and 30% suffer from two or more infirmities. Hypertension is the most common disease, followed by coronary artery disease, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Aging processes, illnesses, malnutrition, difficulties in communication and comprehension, psychological alterations and social needs may coexist and overlap. Changes in pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics induced by aging make elderly patients very sensitive to drugs, especially those administered perioperatively. Drug underuse, misuse and abuse are described, together with criteria to manage perioperative medications. Disability, dementia and frailty are risk factors for adverse outcomes and delirium after surgery. Traditional anesthesia consultation captures only a small portion of the necessary information, especially about functional status and frailty. Although the association between older age and surgical complications is well known, most anesthetists and surgeons do not measure physical and cognitive function preoperatively. Extending anesthesia consultation to functional status provides useful information for preoperative counseling and planning of postoperative care. A strong joint action with the surgical team is essential. Currently, while many resources are employed to assess preoperative cardiac risk and despite the dramatic increase in the number of elderly surgical patients, the association between older age itself and surgical complications has not been fully investigated, and preoperative evaluation of functional status is not yet a part of routine preoperative practice. Creating a new culture and developing appropriate clinical, scientific and relational approaches to these patients represent the core of the challenge.

Postoperative pain treatment SIAARTI Recommendations 2010. Short version.

The aim of these recommendations is the revision of data published in 2002 in the "SIAARTI Recommendations for acute postoperative pain treatment". In this version, the SIAARTI Study Group for acute and chronic pain decided to grade evidence based on the "modified Delphi" method with 5 levels of recommendation strength. Analgesia is a fundamental right of the patient. The appropriate management of postoperative pain (POP) is known to significantly reduce perioperative morbidity, including the incidence of postoperative complications, hospital stay and costs, especially in high-risk patients (ASA III-V), those undergoing major surgery and those hospitalized in a critical unit (Level A). Therefore, the treatment of POP represents a high-priority institutional objective, as well as an integral part of the treatment plan for "perioperative disease", which includes analgesia, early mobilization, early enteral nutrition and active physiokinesitherapy (Level A). In order to improve an ACUTE PAIN SERVICE organization, we recommend: --a plan for pain management that includes adequate preoperative evaluation, pain measurement, organization of existing resources, identification and training of involved personnel in order to assure multimodal analgesia, early mobilization, early enteral nutrition and active physiokinesitherapy (Level A); --the implementation of an Acute Pain Service, a multidisciplinary structure which includes an anesthetist (team coordinator), surgeons, nurses, physiotherapists and eventually other specialists; --referring to high-quality indicators in establishing an APS and considering the following key points in its organization (Level C): --service adoption; --identifying a referring anesthetist who is on call 24 hours a day; --patient care during the night and weekend; --sharing, drafting and updating written therapeutic protocols; --continuous medical education; --systematic pain assessment; --data collection regarding the efficacy and safety of the implemented protocols; --at least one audit per year. --a preoperative evaluation, including all the necessary information for the management of postoperative analgesia (Level C); --to adequately inform the patient about the risks and benefits of drugs and procedures used to obtain the maximum efficacy from the administered treatments (Level D). We describe pharmacological and loco-regional techniques with special attention to day surgery and difficult populations. Risk management pathways must be the reference for early identification and treatment of adverse events and chronic pain development.

High risk patients in day surgery.

Day surgery (DS) is continuously expanding due to both economic pressure and improvement in surgery and anesthesia. In the 1970s, only healthy patients undergoing simple procedures were accepted. Subsequent studies demonstrated that mortality and major morbidity are rare. Complicated patients are now considered suitable for DS in the current clinical practice. The aim of this article is to discuss the concept of risk evaluation in DS and to examine potentially risky situations. The outcomes that should be considered are intermediate and late outcomes, such as unplanned admission or return to hospital. Risk factors are the patient's clinical status, surgery and anesthesia and the kind of facility. Little evidence exists on what conditions should be considered predictors of adverse outcomes after DS. Non-compensated, poorly-stabilized cardiac and respiratory patients, obstructive sleep apnea, age >85 years and preterm infants are at high risk of complications. Unplanned admission or return to the hospital are more frequent after ENT and urology DS. Whether or not outpatient tonsillectomy is safe is controversial. The reported death rate per 100,000 procedures is 9.2 in offices and 0.78 in DS centers. Complicated patients need careful, time-appropriate and team-based preoperative evaluation by expert anesthetists with appropriate knowledge of DS. Patient clinical status is only one of the factors that should be considered. Surgeon's and anesthetist's skill, surgery and anesthesia technique and surgical setting are equally important. Therefore, only after evaluating their own experience and results are DS centers allowed to decide whether or not to treat a challenging patient as an outpatient.

The long-term prognostic significance of repeated blood pressure measurements in the elderly: SPAA (Studio sulla Pressione Arteriosa nell'Anziano) 10-year follow-up.

BACKGROUND: In young and middle-aged people, both systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressure have a continuous, strong, and independent relationship with subsequent cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. These relationships are not well documented in older people and, until now, studies in the elderly do not provide homogeneous results on the importance of DBP compared with SBP as a cardiovascular risk factor. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether SBP and DBP are independent indicators of mortality risk in the elderly. DESIGN: An observational prospective cohort study to analyze the long-term prognostic significance of repeated SBP and DBP measurements in the elderly. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 3858 outpatients 65 years or older (mean age [SD], 72.9 [4.9] years, 43.5% men) were selected randomly by 444 Italian National Health Service general practitioners in 1983. The population was followed up for 10 years. Crude and adjusted incidence rates of total and cardiovascular mortality were analyzed for classes of SBP and DBP based on the values recorded at the 2 initial visits 1 week apart and those measured during the first 12 months of follow-up. RESULTS: During the 10-year follow-up, 74 patients (1.9%) were lost to follow-up and 1561 (41.3%) died, 709 (45.4% of all deaths) from cardiovascular causes. A positive continuous, graded, strong, and independent association was observed with both total (P<.001) and cardiovascular (P<.001) mortality for SBP but not for DBP. The pattern was similar in both sexes, in persons younger and older than 75 years, regardless of preexisting cardiovascular diseases, and whether they had been receiving antihypertensive treatment at baseline. There was no J-shaped mortality curve in the subjects with the lowest SBP and DBP. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that SBP, but not DBP, is a strong, positive, continuous, independent indicator of mortality risk in the elderly and should be stressed much more than DBP in the diagnosis and treatment of hypertension in this age group.

Solid variant of aneurysmal bone cyst.

BACKGROUND AND METHODS: Of the 200 cases of ABC in the Rizzoli Institute files, 15 had solid features on both gross and histologic examination. Inasmuch as fibrous proliferation with giant cell and bone production along with fibromyxoid areas and small aneurysmal spaces were found in the solid parts of the aneurysmal bone cyst, a grossly solid and radiographically osteolytic bone lesion with these microscopic features was called a solid aneurysmal bone cyst. Some authors call the same lesion extragnathic giant cell reparative granuloma. RESULTS: Sixty percent of the patients were female. The metaphysis was the preferred location in the long bones (8/11). Radiographic appearance was not specific, and sometimes a malignant lesion was very difficult to rule out. In seven patients, the lesion was considered radiographically "aggressive." Intralesional excision (curettage) in 12 patients and marginal resection in 3 patients with diaphyseal location was effective in controlling the lesion. No recurrence was detected after a mean follow-up of 59 months. CONCLUSIONS: High proliferative activity of the benign-appearing proliferative spindle cells, often with fairly abundant mitoses, associated with benign giant cells and immature bone production are the features of this pseudosarcomatous hyperplastic lesion. It is sometimes is mistaken for a malignant tumor.

The Gamma nail, sliding-compression plate. A comparison between the long-term results obtained in two similar series.

The authors report the results they obtained in a retrospective comparative study conducted on two systems of osteosynthesis used to treat trochanteric fractures: the sliding-compression screw-plate (CHS), and the Gamma nail. Two series were included in the study, each of which was made up of 50 cases; these were comparable in terms of fracture type, age of the patients, associated pathologies, and minimum follow-ups of 6 months. The parameters compared were: surgical trauma, average amount of time before a standing position could be resumed, resumption of motor activity previous to trauma, mechanical behavior of the instrumentation. The results show that both of the means of synthesis are capable of effectively stabilizing pertrochanteric fractures, avoiding the mechanical complications instead observed when more dated instrumentation, such as the screw-plate or nail-plate, are used, systems which are not characterized by a sliding cervico-cephalic screw. The amount of time before walking is resumed is quicker when the Gamma nail is used. There was no significant difference in terms of resumption of motor activity. Surgical trauma was the same in both series when the instrumentation was applied after reduction of the fracture in closed surgery, while blood loss was greater when fracture reduction required by application of the plate was performed in open surgery.

[The adverse effects induced by ornipressin during oral and maxillofacial surgical interventions under general anesthesia]. / Effetti indesiderati indotti dall'ornipressina durante interventi di chirurgia orale e maxillo-facciale in anestesia generale.

There are various methods used in maxillofacial surgery for the control of superficial hemorrhage. The purpose is to achieve a better identification of the anatomical structures and reduce operating times without side effects. Ornipressin has no arrhythmogenic effects in presence of inhalational anesthetics and should therefore be considered safer then adrenalin. The authors examined the cardiocirculatory effects of this drug by means of an invasive hemodynamic study on five patients. The results showed that ornipressin causes worrying increases in blood pressure and peripheral vascular resistances, with reduction in the cardiac output.

Recurring osteoblastoma initially presenting as a typical osteoid osteoma. Report of two cases.

Two patients each underwent inadequate excision of an osteoid osteoma and some months later developed a large tumor in the same location showing the radiographical and histological features of osteoblastoma. This rare occurrence again suggests that osteoid osteoma and osteoblastoma are closely connected benign neoplasms. Indeed some authors in the past have suggested classification as a single tumor showing different clinical and radiographical patterns.

[Handicapped patients. General anesthesia or sedation?]. / Pazienti handicappati. Anestesia generale o sedazione?

The Authors consider the problems involved in dental treatment of the handicapped patients. Accuracy in diagnosis of the handicap factor, knowledge about its consequences on pathophysiological status and about chronically assumed drugs are the first step: in fact these patients may be affected by a wide variety of physiopathologic and mental diseases. Failure of cooperation requires general anesthesia or sedation techniques. General anesthesia can be dangerous (malignant hyperthermia in myopathies, difficult intubation in facial anomalies, pharmacological interactions); furthermore, its frequent application even in order to perform minimal treatment is often unsuitable. Sedation techniques offer a more convenient possibility, but must be practised by trained operators. Nitrous oxide alone rarely produces in fact a sufficient degree of sedation and is suitable only in patients affected by very slight mental insufficiency. In the other cases, association with various drugs (as benzodiazepines, barbiturates etc) is needed. In such a situation, the active and continuous presence of the anesthesiologist becomes mandatory.

[The prevention of occupational exposure to anesthetics: the standards aspects]. / Prevenzione dell'inquinamento da anestetici: aspetti normativi.

Prevention of damage of occupational exposure to anaesthetic gases and vapors consists in limitation of pollution and in biological and environmental monitoring. Reduction of polluting concentrations can be obtained only by using both ventilation of the operating room and active scavenging; proper behaviour in accordance with prevention rules and psychologic involvement of personnel is also needed. Biological and environmental measurements are useful in order to evaluate the efficiency of prevention and to early detected overexposures. Acts and regulations in force at present in Italy and technical specifications concerning this problem are than reviewed. The author notices that in many cases, standards dealing with requirements to be satisfied should be established before performance standards; at any rate, regulations should also be more compulsive.

Osteoid osteoma and osteoblastoma of the pelvis.

Benign osteoblastic tumors of the pelvis are rarely encountered in orthopedic practice. In most of the cases they involve the acetabular area, as was the case in nine of 14 cases of osteoid osteoma and osteoblastoma presented in this study. Especially with small tumors, such as osteoid osteomas, such a rare occurrence together with difficulties in the interpretation of roentgenograms can lead to mistakes and delays in diagnosis. To reduce these risks, a high grade of clinical suspicion and the use of tomograms or computed tomography (CT) scan and isotope bone scan are required. CT scan is an invaluable tool also for planning the surgical treatment in cases in which the tumor involves the acetabulum. Whereas an intracapsular excision is an adequate treatment for pelvic osteoid osteoma, pelvic osteoblastoma due to its size may need more aggressive surgery, even leading in some cases to a partial pelvic resection. The risk of recurrence is higher for osteoblastoma than for osteoid osteoma, as well as the rate of complications.