At the end of 2019, a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was identified as the cause of a cluster of pneumonia cases, with high needs of mechanical ventilation in critically ill patients. It is still unclear whether different types of COVID-19 pneumonia require different ventilator strategies. With electrical impedance tomography (EIT) we evaluated, in real time and bedside, the distribution of ventilation in the different pulmonary regions before, during, and after pronation in COVID-19 respiratory failure. We present a brief literature review of EIT in non-COVID-19 patients and a report of 2 COVID-19 patients: one that did not respond well and another one that improved during and after pronation. EIT might be a useful tool to decide whether prone positioning should or should not be used in COVID-19 pneumonia.

BACKGROUND: Major noncardiac surgery is associated with high rates of postoperative myocardial injury and other complications. Remote ischemic preconditioning (RIPC) was reported to decrease these complication rates. However, such supportive evidence lacks robustness. METHODS: In a multinational, double-blind trial, we randomly assigned adult high-risk patients undergoing noncardiac surgical procedures to receive RIPC or sham RIPC after the induction of general anesthesia and before surgery. RIPC involved three 5-minute ischemic cycles, each followed by 5 minutes of reperfusion, using a blood pressure cuff inflated to 200 mm Hg. The primary end point was the rate of myocardial injury, defined by an increase in postoperative troponin levels above the highest 99th percentile of reference values. Secondary outcomes included myocardial infarction, stroke, acute kidney injury, need for intensive care unit, length of hospital stay, and 30-day all-cause mortality. RESULTS: We recruited 1213 patients in 25 hospitals and 8 countries. We randomly assigned 599 patients to RIPC and 614 to sham RIPC. The most frequent surgical procedures were abdominal or intrathoracic surgeries (406 patients [33.6%]). RIPC was applied to the upper limb in 1014 patients (84.8%) and to the lower limb in 182 patients (15.2%). Postoperative myocardial injury occurred in 215 of 566 patients (38.0%) in the RIPC group and in 223 of 596 patients (37.4%) in the sham RIPC group (relative risk, 1.02 [95% CI, 0.88–1.18; P =0.84). There were no significant differences in the rate of any secondary outcomes. We observed 11 episodes of limb petechiae (10 [1.7%] in the RIPC group versus one [0.2%] in the sham RIPC group) and 34 (6.0%) hospital readmissions in the RIPC group versus 20 (3.5%) in the sham RIPC group. CONCLUSIONS: Among adult patients undergoing noncardiac surgery, RIPC did not reduce myocardial injury or other postoperative complications. REGISTRATION: URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov ; Unique identifier: NCT02427867.

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, lung ultrasound (LUS) has been widely used since it can be performed at the patient’s bedside, does not produce ionizing radiation, and is sufficiently accurate. The LUS score allows for quantifying lung involvement; however, its clinical prognostic role is still controversial. Methods: A retrospective observational study on 103 COVID-19 patients with respiratory failure that were assessed with an LUS score at intensive care unit (ICU) admission and discharge in a tertiary university COVID-19 referral center. Results: The deceased patients had a higher LUS score at admission than the survivors (25.7 vs. 23.5; p-value = 0.02; cut-off value of 25; Odds Ratio (OR) 1.1; Interquartile Range (IQR) 1.0−1.2). The predictive regression model shows that the value of LUSt0 (OR 1.1; IQR 1.0–1.3), age (OR 1.1; IQR 1.0−1.2), sex (OR 0.7; IQR 0.2−3.6), and days in spontaneous breathing (OR 0.2; IQR 0.1–0.5) predict the risk of death for COVID-19 patients (Area under the Curve (AUC) 0.92). Furthermore, the surviving patients showed a significantly lower difference between LUS scores at admission and discharge (mean difference of 1.75, p-value = 0.03). Conclusion: Upon entry into the ICU, the LUS score may play a prognostic role in COVID-19 patients with ARDS. Furthermore, employing the LUS score as a monitoring tool allows for evaluating the patients with a higher probability of survival.

The shortage of organs and the growing need for them over recent years have led to the adoption of less stringent donor acceptance criteria, resulting in the approval of marginal organs for transplant, especially from elderly donors. This implies a higher risk of graft dysfunction, a higher frequency of immunological and vascular complications, and shorter graft survival. Several strategies have been implemented in clinical practice to assess graft quality and suitability for transplantation. We have started to test the prospective intraoperative use of thermo-vision cameras during graft reperfusion. Images were acquired using the FLIR One Pro thermo-vision camera for android devices. We hypothesized that thermal images would give a better perspective about the quality of arterial perfusion and graft revascularization of the renal cortex. Thermo-vision cameras provide an easy-to-use, noninvasive, cost-effective tool for the global assessment of kidney graft cortical microcirculation in the immediate post-reperfusion period, providing additional data on the immediate viability and function of a graft.

Background: Worldwide, one of the most common surgical procedures in the pediatric population is circumcision. There is no consent on the best anesthesiologic approach. This study aimed to investigate ultrasound-guided dorsal penile nerve block (DPNB) plus sedation in spontaneous breathing as a time-saving, safe, effective, and opioid-sparing technique.Aims: The primary outcome was the assessment of the time from the end of surgery and the discharge to the post-anesthesia care unit. Secondary outcomes were to evaluate the cumulative dosages of opioids, differences in pain levels between the two groups, and complications at the awakening, 4 h and 72 h after surgery, respectively.Methods: This was a prospective study with a retrospective control group, approved by the Friuli–Venezia Giulia Ethics Committee. Children in the intervention group received an ultrasound-guided DPNB under sedation and spontaneous breathing. With the probe positioned transversally at the base of the penis using an in-plane approach with a modified technique, local anesthetic was injected under the deep fascia of the penis.Results: We recruited 70 children who underwent circumcision at the University Hospital of Udine, Italy, from 1 January 2016 to 1 October 2021: 35 children in the ultrasound-guided DPNB group and 35 children in the control group. Children who received ultrasound-guided DPNB had a statistically significant lower time to discharge from the operating room, did not require mechanical ventilation, maintained spontaneous breathing at all times, received fewer opioids, had lower mean intraoperative arterial pressures, and lower pain levels immediately after surgery.Conclusion: Ultrasound-guided DPNB associated with sedation and spontaneous breathing is a time-saving, opioid-sparing, safe, and effective strategy for the management of intraoperative and postoperative pain in children undergoing circumcision.Clinical trial registration:ClinicalTrial.gov (NCT04475458, 17 July 2020).