-
Reviews
Back to Reviews
-
What are the main claims of the paper and how important are they?
The authors present some personal considerations about the cost of inhalation anaesthesia; the result seems more a "letter to the editor" than an "original article";
-
Are these claims novel? If not, please specify papers that weaken the claims to the originality of this one.
These claims are well known in the anaesthesia literature and this manuscript is just a personal comment to the topic
-
Are the claims properly placed in the context of the previous literature?
Yes
-
Do the results support the claims? If not, what other evidence is required?
NA
-
If a protocol is provided, for example for a randomized controlled trial, are there any important deviations from it? If so, have the authors explained adequately why the deviations occurred?
NA
-
Is the methodology valid? Does the paper offer enough details of its methodology that its experiments or its analyses could be reproduced?
NA
-
Would any other experiments or additional information improve the paper? How much better would the paper be if this extra work was done, and how difficult would such work be to do, or to provide?
NA
-
Is this paper outstanding in its discipline? (For example, would you like to see this work presented in a seminar at your hospital or university? Do you feel these results need to be incorporated in your next general lecture on the subject?) If yes, what makes it outstanding? If not, why not?
NA
-
Other Comments:
The manuscript may be useful to remember to the anaesthesia community some important issues:
1) anaesthesia costs are about only 5% of the total cost of a surgical procedure; maybe it is more important a preventive stringent selection regarding the real necessity of a scheduled surgery. Emblematic examples are:
a) bariatric surgery (alimentary education and prevention of obesity is the real solution that deserve more monetary resources than surgery and anaesthesia)
b) orthopedic prosthetic surgery in obese patient (more of the times unuseful and sometime harmful)
c) low back surgery for low back pain with consequent "failed low back surgery syndrome" and their infinite costs
d) oncologic surgery in desperate cases (always more ferquent)
e) diagnostic procedures like arthoscopies (more often these procedures are undertaken without real need nor benefit for the patient)
e) all the costs coming from these "bad surgeries" and theri consequences on patients lives.
2) If inhalation anaesthesia is used, low flow anaesthesia should be mandatory.
3) the issue of "eco-friendly hospitals" should be stressed because this is a responsability of anaesthesia community, but this regards also the production and disposal of dangerous, nuclear and infectious waste in medicine all over the world, the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in human and veterinary medicine ... and so on -
Competing interests:
None
-
Invited by the author to review this article? :
No -
Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
No
-
References:
No
-
Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:
NA
- How to cite: Zanette G .Review title: Inhalational Anesthesia Gas Calculations: Billing issues and Outcome Measures [Review of the article 'Inhalational Anesthesia Gas Calculations: Billing issues and Outcome Measures ' by Fuleihan S].WebmedCentral 2013;4(1):WMCRW002451
All site content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a
In this special report, the authors have focused on addressing some concerns of the inhalation anaesthesia cost. A very important yet underestimated aspect of daily practice.
No. The ideas presented are mostly accepted as facts in general.
Yes
Yes
No
No
This article should be considered either as a special report providing details on a special topic or some statistical comparisons be made to turn it into an origional article.
No
If the authors could make some statistical comparisons between two or some centers, definitely great validity would be added to this paper. However, some important facts were highlighted. As a "Special Report" or "Short comunication", this paper can emphasize the mostly-neglected facts in our daily practice.
None
No
No
No
Anesthesiology, Pain medicine