Variation in perioperative cerebral and hemodynamic monitoring during carotid endarterectomy.

BACKGROUND: Hemodynamic disturbances cause half of the perioperative strokes following carotid endarterectomy (CEA). Guidelines strongly recommend strict pre- and postoperative blood pressure (BP) monitoring in CEA patients, but do not provide firm practical recommendations. Although in the Netherlands 50 centres perform CEA, no national protocol on perioperative hemodynamic, and cerebral monitoring exists. To assess current monitoring policies of all Dutch CEA-centres, a national survey was conducted. METHODS: Between May and July 2017 all 50 Dutch CEA-centres were invited to complete a 42-question survey addressing perioperative hemodynamic and cerebral monitoring during CEA. Nonresponders received a reminder after 1 and 2 months. By November 2017 the survey was completed by all centres. RESULTS: Preoperative baseline BP was based on a single bilateral BP-measurement at the outpatient-clinic in the majority of centres (n = 28). In 43 centres (86%) pre-operative monitoring (transcranial Doppler (TCD, n = 6), electroencephalography (EEG, n = 11), or TCD + EEG (n = 26)) was performed as a baseline reference. Intraoperatively, large diversity for type of anaesthesia (general: 45 vs. local [LA]:5) and target systolic BP (>100 mm hg - 160 mm hg [n = 12], based on preoperative outpatient-clinic or admission BP [n = 18], other [n = 20]) was reported. Intraoperative cerebral monitoring included EEG + TCD (n = 28), EEG alone (n = 13), clinical neurological examination with LA (n = 5), near-infrared spectroscopy with stump pressure (n = 1), and none due to standard shunting (n = 3). Postoperatively, significant variation was reported in standard duration of admission at a recovery or high-care unit (range 3-48 hr, mean:12 hr), maximum accepted systolic BP (range >100 mm hg - 180 mm Hg [n = 32]), postoperative cerebral monitoring (standard TCD [n = 16], TCD on indication [n = 5] or none [n = 24]) and in timing of postoperative cerebral monitoring (range directly postoperative - 24 hr postoperative; median 3 hr). CONCLUSIONS: In Dutch centres performing CEA the perioperative hemodynamic and cerebral monitoring policies are widely diverse. Diverse policies may theoretically lead to over- or under treatment. The results of this national audit may serve as the baseline dataset for development of a standardized and detailed (inter)national protocol on perioperative hemodynamic and cerebral monitoring during CEA.

Recommendations for hemodynamic monitoring for critically ill children-expert consensus statement issued by the cardiovascular dynamics section of the European Society of Paediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care (ESPNIC).

BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular instability is common in critically ill children. There is a scarcity of published high-quality studies to develop meaningful evidence-based hemodynamic monitoring guidelines and hence, with the exception of management of shock, currently there are no published guidelines for hemodynamic monitoring in children. The European Society of Paediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care (ESPNIC) Cardiovascular Dynamics section aimed to provide expert consensus recommendations on hemodynamic monitoring in critically ill children. METHODS: Creation of a panel of experts in cardiovascular hemodynamic assessment and hemodynamic monitoring and review of relevant literature-a literature search was performed, and recommendations were developed through discussions managed following a Quaker-based consensus technique and evaluating appropriateness using a modified blind RAND/UCLA voting method. The AGREE statement was followed to prepare this document. RESULTS: Of 100 suggested recommendations across 12 subgroups concerning hemodynamic monitoring in critically ill children, 72 reached "strong agreement," 20 "weak agreement," and 2 had "no agreement." Six statements were considered as redundant after rephrasing of statements following the first round of voting. The agreed 72 recommendations were then coalesced into 36 detailing four key areas of hemodynamic monitoring in the main manuscript. Due to a lack of published evidence to develop evidence-based guidelines, most of the recommendations are based upon expert consensus. CONCLUSIONS: These expert consensus-based recommendations may be used to guide clinical practice for hemodynamic monitoring in critically ill children, and they may serve as a basis for highlighting gaps in the knowledge base to guide further research in hemodynamic monitoring.

Best practice & research clinical anaesthesiology: Advances in haemodynamic monitoring for the perioperative patient: Perioperative cardiac output monitoring.

Less invasive or even completely non-invasive haemodynamic monitoring technologies have evolved during the last decades. Even established, invasive devices such as the pulmonary artery catheter and transpulmonary thermodilution have still an evidence-based place in the perioperative setting, albeit only in special patient populations. Accumulating evidence suggests to use continuous haemodynamic monitoring, especially flow-based variables such as stroke volume or cardiac output to prevent occult hypoperfusion and, consequently, decrease morbidity and mortality perioperatively. However, there is still a substantial gap between evidence provided by randomised trials and the implementation of haemodynamic monitoring in daily clinical routine. Given the fact that perioperative morbidity and mortality are higher than anticipated and anaesthesiologists are in charge to deal with this problem, the recent advances in minimally invasive and non-invasive monitoring technologies may facilitate more widespread use in the operating theatre, as in addition to costs, the degree of invasiveness of any monitoring tool determines the frequency of its application, at least perioperatively. This review covers the currently available invasive, non-invasive and minimally invasive techniques and devices and addresses their indications and limitations.

New Developments in Hemodynamic Monitoring.

Hemodynamic monitoring is an essential part of the perioperative management of the cardiovascular patient. It helps to detect hemodynamic alterations, diagnose their underlying causes, and optimize oxygen delivery to the tissues. Furthermore, hemodynamic monitoring is necessary to evaluate the adequacy of therapeutic interventions such as volume expansion or vasoactive medications. Recent developments include the move from static to dynamic variables to assess conditions such as cardiac preload and fluid responsiveness and the transition to less-invasive or even noninvasive monitoring techniques, at least in the perioperative setting. This review describes the available techniques that currently are being used in the care of the cardiovascular patient and discusses their strengths and limitations. Even though the thermodilution method remains the gold standard for measuring cardiac output (CO), the use of the pulmonary artery catheter has declined over the last decades, even in the setting of cardiovascular anesthesia. The transpulmonary thermodilution method, in addition to accurately measuring CO, provides the user with some additional helpful variables, of which extravascular lung water is probably the most interesting. Less-invasive monitoring techniques use, for example, pulse contour analysis to originate flow-derived variables such as stroke volume and CO from the arterial pressure signal, or they may measure the velocity-time integral in the descending aorta to estimate the stroke volume, using, for example, the esophageal Doppler. Completely noninvasive methods such as the volume clamp method use finger cuffs to reconstruct the arterial pressure waveform, from which stroke volume and CO are calculated. All of these less-invasive CO monitoring devices have percentage errors around 40% compared with reference methods (thermodilution), meaning that the values are not interchangeable.

Clinical characteristics and prevalence of adrenal insufficiency in hemodynamically stable patients with cirrhosis.

It is well known that adrenal insufficiency is common in septic shock or hemodynamically unstable patients. But, there is as yet no sufficient clinically significant data about the exact prevalence or differences in the cause of cirrhosis with adrenal insufficiency. To investigate adrenal insufficiency prevalence in hemodynamically stable patients with cirrhosis and determine differences based on cirrhosis severity or etiology.From July 2011 to December 2012, 69 hemodynamically stable patients with cirrhosis without infection admitted at Hallym University Medical Center were enrolled. Adrenal insufficiency was defined as a peak cortisol level < 18 µg/dL, 30 or 60 minutes after 250 µg Synacthen injection.The study included 55 male patients (79.7%), and the mean age was 57.9 ±â€Š12.9 years. Cirrhosis etiology was alcohol consumption, HBV, HCV, both viral and alcohol related, and cryptogenic in 49, 15, 7, 11, 9 patients, respectively. Adrenal insufficiency occurred in 24 patients (34.8%). No differences were found in age, sex, mean arterial pressure, heart rate, HDL, cirrhosis etiology, degree of alcohol consumption, encephalopathy, variceal bleeding history, or hepatocellular carcinoma between patients with or without adrenal insufficiency. Serum albumin level was lower (P < .05), and INR was higher (P < .05) in patients with than in those without adrenal insufficiency. However, multivariate analysis revealed no independent adrenal insufficiency predictor. Significant negative correlations were found between Child-Pugh score and peak cortisol levels (γ=-0.365, P = .008).Adrenal insufficiency was frequent even in hemodynamically stable patients with cirrhosis and tended to be associated with only liver disease severity, being unrelated to cirrhosis etiology.

Prediction of persistent hemodynamic depression after carotid angioplasty and stenting using artificial neural network model.

OBJECTIVES: To assess and compare predictive factors for persistent hemodynamic depression (PHD) after carotid artery angioplasty and stenting (CAS) using artificial neural network (ANN) and multiple logistic regression (MLR) or support vector machines (SVM) models. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A retrospective data set of patients (n=76) who underwent CAS from 2007 to 2014 was used as input (training cohort) to a back-propagation ANN using TensorFlow platform. PHD was defined when systolic blood pressure was less than 90mmHg or heart rate was less 50 beats/min that lasted for more than one hour. The resulting ANN was prospectively tested in 33 patients (test cohort) and compared with MLR or SVM models according to accuracy and receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve analysis. RESULTS: No significant difference in baseline characteristics between the training cohort and the test cohort was observed. PHD was observed in 21 (27.6%) patients in the training cohort and 10 (30.3%) patients in the test cohort. In the training cohort, the accuracy of ANN for the prediction of PHD was 98.7% and the area under the ROC curve (AUROC) was 0.961. In the test cohort, the number of correctly classified instances was 32 (97.0%) using the ANN model. In contrast, the accuracy rate of MLR or SVM model was both 75.8%. ANN (AUROC: 0.950; 95% CI [confidence interval]: 0.813-0.996) showed superior predictive performance compared to MLR model (AUROC: 0.796; 95% CI: 0.620-0.915, p<0.001) or SVM model (AUROC: 0.885; 95% CI: 0.725-0.969, p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The ANN model seems to have more powerful prediction capabilities than MLR or SVM model for persistent hemodynamic depression after CAS. External validation with a large cohort is needed to confirm our results.

Construção e validação de um objeto virtual de aprendizagem para o ensino da semiologia vascular venosa periférica / Construction and validation of a virtual learning object for the teaching of peripheral venous vascular semiology

Objective: To construct and evaluate the SEMIOVAPE - a Virtual Learning Object for teaching of peripheral venous vascular semiology - based on ergonomic, pedagogical and usability criteria. Method: Methodological study, whose participants were experts in Nursing, Computer Science and Nurse undergraduate student. For the construction and validation of the Object, six steps were followed: educational design; computational modeling; environment implementation; ergonomic, pedagogical, and usability evaluation. Results: The Object was built having the characteristic of valuing student's autonomy and approached contents of anatomy and physiology, clinical reasoning and clinical examination. Concerning the ergonomic and pedagogical evaluations, the Object obtained high acceptance rates (66.70% and 70.12%, respectively), as for usability, all participants considered it very useful and were certainly satisfied (95%). Conclusions and implications: The Object is suitable to be used as an alternative source of teaching peripheral venous semiology.

Objetivo: Construir y evaluar, en cuanto a criterios ergonómicos, pedagógicos y de usabilidad, un Objeto Virtual de Aprendizaje para la enseñanza de la semiología vascular venosa periférica, el SEMIOVAPE. Método: Estudio metodológico, cuyos participantes fueron expertos en Enfermería, Informática y estudiantes de pregrado de Enfermería. Para la construcción y validación del objeto, se siguieron seis pasos: diseño educativo; modelado computacional; implementación del ambiente; evaluación ergonómica; evaluación pedagógica y evaluación de la usabilidad. Resultados: El Objeto fue construido teniendo la característica de valorización de la autonomía del alumno y abordó contenidos de anatomía y fisiología, raciocinio clínico y examen clínico. En relación a las evaluaciones ergonómica y pedagógica, el Objeto obtuvo altas tasas de aceptación (66.70% y 70.12%, respectivamente), en cuanto a la usabilidad, todos los participantes lo consideraron muy útil y sin duda alguna estaban satisfechos (95%). Conclusiones e implicaciones: El Objeto es adecuado para ser utilizado como un método alternativo de enseñanza de la semiología venosa periférica.

Objetivo: Construir e avaliar quanto a critérios ergonômicos, pedagógicos e de usabilidade um Objeto Virtual de Aprendizagem para o ensino da semiologia vascular venosa periférica, o SEMIOVAPE. Método: Estudo metodológico, cujos participantes foram peritos da enfermagem, da informática e graduandos de enfermagem. Para construção e validação do Objeto foram seguidas seis etapas: design educacional, modelagem computacional, implementação do ambiente, avaliação ergonômica, avaliação pedagógica e avaliação da usabilidade. Resultados: O Objeto foi construído tendo a característica de valorização da autonomia do aluno e abordou conteúdos de anatomia e fisiologia, raciocínio clínico e exame clínico. Quanto às avaliações ergonômica e pedagógica, o Objeto obteve elevados índices de aceitação (66,70% e 70,12%, respectivamente), quanto à usabilidade, todos os participantes consideraram-no muito útil e ficaram certamente satisfeitos (95%). Conclusões e implicações: O Objeto é adequado para ser utilizado como método alternativo do ensino da semiologia venosa periférica.

The vulnerable microcirculation in the critically ill pediatric patient.

In neonates, cardiovascular system development does not stop after the transition from intra-uterine to extra-uterine life and is not limited to the macrocirculation. The microcirculation (MC), which is essential for oxygen, nutrient, and drug delivery to tissues and cells, also develops. Developmental changes in the microcirculatory structure continue to occur during the initial weeks of life in healthy neonates. The physiologic hallmarks of neonates and developing children make them particularly vulnerable during critical illness; however, the cardiovascular monitoring possibilities are limited compared with critically ill adult patients. Therefore, the development of non-invasive methods for monitoring the MC is necessary in pediatric critical care for early identification of impending deterioration and to enable the initiation and titration of therapy to ensure cell survival. To date, the MC may be non-invasively monitored at the bedside using hand-held videomicroscopy, which provides useful information regarding the microcirculation. There is an increasing number of studies on the MC in neonates and pediatric patients; however, additional steps are necessary to transition MC monitoring from bench to bedside. The recently introduced concept of hemodynamic coherence describes the relationship between changes in the MC and macrocirculation. The loss of hemodynamic coherence may result in a depressed MC despite an improvement in the macrocirculation, which represents a condition associated with adverse outcomes. In the pediatric intensive care unit, the concept of hemodynamic coherence may function as a framework to develop microcirculatory measurements towards implementation in daily clinical practice.