Anaesthesia in austere environments: literature review and considerations for future space exploration missions.

ABSTRACT: Future space exploration missions will take humans far beyond low Earth orbit and require complete crew autonomy. The ability to provide anaesthesia will be important given the expected risk of severe medical events requiring surgery. Knowledge and experience of such procedures during space missions is currently extremely limited. Austere and isolated environments (such as polar bases or submarines) have been used extensively as test beds for spaceflight to probe hazards, train crews, develop clinical protocols and countermeasures for prospective space missions. We have conducted a literature review on anaesthesia in austere environments relevant to distant space missions. In each setting, we assessed how the problems related to the provision of anaesthesia (e.g., medical kit and skills) a

SUBMITTER: Komorowski M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5824960 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature