Great news in the medical and health field regarding anesthesia. Goodbye to the traditional method: now everything changes
Fundamental in the medical and healthcare fields as it allows interventions and surgical operations to be carried out without the patient feeling pain or being awake, anesthesia is something that no one could do without today. There are different types depending on the need from the light ones carried out locally by the dentist for an operation or an extraction to the total ones typical of the most delicate surgical interventions, during which the patient is completely asleep. Anesthesia, a new revolutionary method: already tested in Italy (abruzzo.cityrumors.it)
If on the one hand anesthesia is therefore useful and fundamental, on the other, especially in some cases, it carries with it some risks and some problems, referable to its consequences after the operation and the delicate moment of waking up.
Precisely to try to overcome the negative aspects of the more traditional anesthetic models, based above all on the use of opioids, today science proposes an incredible novelty: Here’s what it is.
News in the field of anesthesia: goodbye to opiates
Today one of the most used substances in the field of anesthesia is opium, also used therapeutically as a sedative, antitussive, analgesic and antidiarrheal. Among its derivatives, one of the most used is laudanum, a compound based on opium and alcohol which was used, for example, during the Civil War in America to relieve the pain of wounded soldiers, as well as in psychiatric treatments.
Today, however, we are talking about the Gran Torino acronym of Global Reduction of ANaesthesia in Thoracotomy Optimized for Real Innovative Operations, a new anesthetic protocol introduced for the first time by Maria Pia Hospital in Turin in Piedmont, for the treatment of diseases of the cardiovascular system.
The objective of the Gran Torino protocol is to reduce the side effects of anesthesia, promoting post-operative recovery and reducing the use of opioids. The protocol was presented at the congress of the Italian Society of Cardiology in 2022 and has several advantages, including an easier recovery and faster awakening after the operation.
The patient is extubated in the operating room and we note the absence or reduction of gastric disturbances, post-operative hyperalgesia, and even respiratory depression, frequent with traditional anesthetic models. At the moment, there are already 31 patients who have adhered to Gran Torino anesthesia, including mitral or aortic valve surgery.
In all cases, a mixture of drugs was used aimed at blocking pain receptors locally, a very useful technique especially in the case of elderly patients, for whom traditional anesthesia models are often not recommended.