5 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
This research is being done to compare two methods of giving fentanyl, a narcotic often given to patients following brain surgery and determine if one method has more side effects than the other. Both of these methods are available in the postoperative treatment of pain. This research also is being done to determine if patients receiving narcotic pain medicine will benefit from additional monitoring of carbon dioxide levels. Since narcotic pain medicines can slow down breathing, The investigators want to see if measuring exhaled carbon dioxide levels will help identify a slower breathing rate and improve safety.
The purpose of this prospective, clinical observational trial is to assess the incidence of pain (and analgesia), methods of pain assessment (and by whom), prescribed analgesics, methods of analgesic delivery, and patient/parent satisfaction in patients undergoing craniotomy surgery at three major children's hospitals (Boston Children's Hospital, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, The Children's Center Johns Hopkins Hospital) in the United States.
Postoperative pain is prevalent after intracranial surgery. Patients undergoing craniotomy are typically managed with short acting opioids to enable early and reliable post-operative neurological exam as well as avoid the risk of respiratory depression. However, a plethora of studies have shown that a majority of these patients experience moderate to severe pain in first 48 hours after surgery. Suboptimal pain control can lead to complications such as arterial hypertension and post-operative intracranial hemorrhage, and hence, increased morbidity and mortality. Intravenous (IV) methadone has a long analgesic half-life and has N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist and serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) properties. It has previously been shown to reduce postoperative opioid requirements, postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV), and postoperative pain scores in patients that underwent orthopedic, abdominal, complex spine, and cardiac surgery. Similar findings have been shown in obstetric patients that underwent caesarean delivery under general anesthesia as well as patients that underwent gynecologic surgery and received IV methadone intraoperatively. In a recently published retrospective study, a single intraoperative dose of IV methadone was well tolerated with lower pain scores as well as MME (oral morphine milligram equivalents) requirements for up to 72 hours after elective intracranial surgery. IV methadone has, however, never been compared with conventional management via IV remifentanil for functional recovery in patients undergoing elective intercranial surgery. The investigator's hypothesis is that intravenous (IV) methadone is non-inferior to IV remifentanil in patients who undergo elective intracranial surgery. It offers the advantage of being a single dose noninvasive analgesic modality that may contribute to decreasing MME consumption during the first 72 hours postoperatively, controlling postoperative pain, and improving quality of recovery after surgery.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of intravenous acetaminophen (Tylenol) for post operative pain control in patients undergoing craniotomies (brain surgery) and spine surgery. Studies have shown that intravenous acetaminophen is useful for post operative pain control in some operations but there have not been studies to evaluate the use of acetaminophen in craniotomies or spine surgery.
We hypothesize that in patients undergoing surgical treatment of unruptured intracranial aneurysms, the increase in blood sugar as a result of surgical stress is detrimental to outcome, as measured by blood levels of proteins associated with systemic inflammation and 7 day, 90 day, and 1 year postoperative neurologic and neuropsychiatric outcomes. Because insulin itself is an anti-inflammatory agent, we anticipate that normalizing blood sugar levels with insulin doses higher than normally produced by the body (i.e., "supraphysiologic" insulin doses) will have a greater benefit on these outcomes than equally normalizing blood sugar levels using normal insulin doses. Based on the results of this study, we will be able to determine if a more laborious strategy to normalize blood sugar levels (i.e., "supraphysiologic" insulin therapy) offers any additional benefits to normal insulin dosing strategies. In addition, we will obtain a robust assessment of postoperative neuropsychiatric and neurologic outcomes of surgically repaired unruptured intracranial aneurysms that will serve as the basis for future studies to decrease morbidity of these patients