Mohammad Reza Khajavi , Amirali Orandi , Pejman Pourfakhr , Farhad Etezadi ,
Volume 71, Issue 8 (11-2013)
Abstract
Background: The Trigemino-cardiac reflex (TCR) has been studied as a phenomenon including bradycardia, arterial hypotension, apnea and gastric hypermotility during manipulation of the peripheral or central parts of the trigeminal nerve.
Case presentation: We report a case of a 26-year-old man undergoing surgery for a skull base extra axial tumor in right petrous bone suspected to metastasis of a previous renal cell carcinoma which had been treated four years ago. The patient presented with continuous and unilateral headache and difficulty in swallowing, sensory neural hearing loss, nasal speech and tongue deviation to left side. He underwent general anesthesia with standard monitoring and total intravenous anesthetic technique. The first episode of sudden onset bradycardia and hypotension related to surgical manipulation was detected intraoperatively in which the heart rate spontaneously returned to normal level once the surgical manipulation stopped. However, it repeated several times by beginning of tumor resection and manipulation in the region of trigeminal nerve. The intensity of bradycardia in subsequent episodes of TCR was relatively crescendo and had no fatigability. Finally, it was treated by administration of a single dose of atropine (0.5mg/IV) and did not happen again.
Conclusion: The risk of TCR should be considered in any neurosurgical intervention involving trigeminal nerve and its branches, especially at the skull base surgeries. The vigilance of the medical team and continuous intraoperative hemodynamic monitoring alerts the surgeons to interrupt surgical maneuvers upon the TCR occurrence, immediately.
Zohreh Habibi, Seyed Morsal Mosallami Aghili , Seyed Amir Hossein Javadi , Arash Seifi, Kourosh Karimi Yarandi, Seyed Ali Dehghan Manshadi , Fereshteh Naderi Behdani ,
Volume 79, Issue 2 (5-2021)
Abstract
Background: Neurosurgery practice conflicts with many challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic; Including the lack of beds in intensive care units, as well as the use of some methods such as drills and trans-nasal and trans-oral approaches that produce aerosols or are directly in contact with patient discharge. Due to these challenges, developing a clinical guideline to help neurosurgeons and medical staff in decision making and improving patients and medical staff safety during the COVID-19 pandemic is the purpose of this study.
Methods: First, all of the relevant clinical guidelines to neurosurgical practice during the COVID-19 pandemic were extracted from the data centers. Finally, five clinical guidelines were selected. The questions and the items were designed according to these guidelines. The answers to each of the questions were extracted from these guidelines. The complementary evidence was extracted by searching in the data centers again. Finally, the answers were edited and the edited answers were considered as the recommendations. These recommendations were sent to 4 experts in the Neurosurgery field and 2 experts in the infectious diseases field. The appraisers evaluated the recommendations according to the AGREE-REX instrument. This instrument has 9 items and 3 domains including clinical applicability, values and preferences, and implement ability. Recommendations with above 80% agreement were considered as the final recommendations.
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Results: The final recommendations were presented as “Clinical guideline of neurosurgical practice during the COVID-19 pandemic” in the results section.
Conclusion: This clinical guideline was developed by using similar guidelines and available evidence. Proper usage of personal protective equipment, reduction of unnecessary contacts between medical staff and patients, use of Telemedicine for follow-up, proper air conditioning, screening patients for COVID-19, reduction of elective surgery, use of less invasive methods, management of aerosol production and reduction of trans-oral and trans-nasal approaches are the most important recommendations of this clinical guideline.
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