About

Rabail Chaudhry, MD, MSc, FRCPC, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at the College of Medicine in Tucson. He serves as the Trauma Specialty Service Chief, contributing to the field of anesthesiology with a focus on trauma care. His professional credentials include a medical degree, a Master of Science, and fellowship recognition from the Royal College of Physicians of Canada, indicating a high level of expertise and specialization in his field.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Internal medicine
• Intensive care medicine
• Demography
• Environmental health
• Pediatrics
• Anesthesia
• Surgery
• Economic growth
• Emergency medicine

Selected publications

• Effect of frailty as measured by functional impairment on long-term outcomes in liver transplantation in the United States

  World Journal of Transplantation · 2025-02-21 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND In patients with chronic liver disease or hepatic dysfunction with sarcopenia, there is an increased risk of frailty as measured by functional impairment, making frailty a vital predictor of post-transplant mortality. AIM To investigate the effects of frailty on mortality after liver transplantation. METHODS A retrospective review of post-transplant outcomes in liver transplant recipients assessed frailty using Karnofsky Performance Score. Data from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients database for 37427 liver transplant recipients was used. RESULTS Of 82.7% frail patients, 42.7% were severely frail and 40% were moderately frail (P < 0.001) at the time of transplantation. Compared with non-frail patients, post-transplant mortality in frail patients was significantly higher at 12 months [odds ratio (OR) = 1.94, P = 0.02)]. Secondary analysis of the data revealed that liver grafts from donation after circulatory death (DCD) were more likely to be associated with frail patients at transplant (OR = 1.86, P < 0.001). Furthermore, a donor history of hypertension was associated with a lower likelihood of frailty in the recipient at the time of transplant (OR = 0.65, P = 0.03). CONCLUSION Recipient frailty is associated with increased mortality at 12 months following liver transplantation, and liver transplants from donors with DCD are associated with increased frailty of the liver transplant recipient.

  PublisherDOI

• Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury: Review of the Literature

  Journal of Clinical Medicine · 2025-05-22 · 7 citations

  reviewOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Traumatic spinal cord injury (tSCI) is a devastating neurological disorder with profound effects on physical, psychological, and mental abilities. tSCI affects all age groups, with a higher incidence in elderly patients. There are many causes of tSCI, with motor vehicle accidents (MVA) and falls being the most common. The pathophysiology of tSCI is quite complex and involves primary and secondary injury. The primary injury directly results from the mechanical forces that caused the injury. Secondary injury is caused by long-term changes caused by inflammation, immune changes, and the formation of free radicals. Numerous studies have explored various medical and surgical treatment options that help mitigate long-term damage caused by tSCI and help improve quality of life. Currently, there are no treatments for tSCI that can reverse spinal cord damage or fully restore motor and sensory functions. However, many pharmacological and non-pharmacological options are being studied in tSCI patients. This review will discuss the background, pathophysiology, and clinical presentation of tSCI while also providing a detailed analysis of the recent advancements in treatment options.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Optimizing hemorrhage management in trauma: integrative roles of tranexamic acid and tissue plasminogen activator-augmented viscoelastic testing

  Journal of Thrombosis and Thrombolysis · 2025-10-25 · 2 citations

  reviewSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Traumatic Brain Injury: Advances in Diagnostic Techniques and Treatment Modalities

  Journal of Clinical Medicine · 2025-10-10 · 1 citations

  reviewOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Background/Objectives: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major global cause of death and disability, with long-term cognitive, behavioral, and functional consequences. Despite its high burden, management is complicated by heterogeneous presentations and limited evidence. This review summarizes recent advances in monitoring, therapeutic strategies, neuroprotection, and rehabilitation, while highlighting future directions toward individualized and globalized care. Methods: This paper is a narrative review of clinical trials, systematic reviews, and observational studies, focusing on invasive and non-invasive monitoring, pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic interventions, neuroprotective agents, stem cell therapy, and advanced rehabilitation modalities. Results/Findings: Our review focuses on emerging monitoring techniques, including brain tissue oxygenation, cerebral microdialysis, and multimodal strategies, that provide detailed insights but lack standardized application. Interventions such as anti-inflammatory agents, hypothermia, hyperosmolar therapies, and metabolic suppression show mixed efficacy, with few therapies supported by high-level evidence. Novel agents like erythropoietin and progesterone demonstrate neuroprotective potential in preclinical models but remain inconclusive in clinical trials. Stem cell therapies and extracellular vesicle approaches are promising in early studies. Rehabilitation is expanding with virtual reality, robotics, and neurostimulation to promote neuroplasticity. Personalized medicine approaches incorporating biomarkers and machine learning may refine prognostication and guide therapy. Global inequities persist, particularly in low-resource settings. Conclusions: TBI care is shifting toward individualized, multimodal, and technology-driven strategies. While emerging therapies show promise, high-quality randomized trials and global implementation strategies are needed to improve outcomes and reduce disparities.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Risk of Postoperative Complications after Non-Cardiac Surgery

  Journal of Clinical Medicine · 2024-04-26 · 25 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a common sleep disorder, poses significant challenges in perioperative management due to its complexity and multifactorial nature. With a global prevalence of approximately 22.6%, OSA often remains undiagnosed, and increases the risk of cardiac and respiratory postoperative complications. Preoperative screening has become essential in many institutions to identify patients at increased risk, and experts recommend proceeding with surgery in the absence of severe symptoms, albeit with heightened postoperative monitoring. Anesthetic and sedative agents exacerbate upper airway collapsibility and depress central respiratory activity, complicating intraoperative management, especially with neuromuscular blockade use. Additionally, OSA patients are particularly prone to opioid-induced respiratory depression, given their increased sensitivity to opioids and heightened pain perception. Thus, regional anesthesia and multimodal analgesia are strongly advocated to reduce perioperative complication risks. Postoperative care for OSA patients necessitates vigilant monitoring and tailored management strategies, such as supplemental oxygen and Positive Airway Pressure therapy, to minimize cardiorespiratory complications. Health care institutions are increasingly focusing on enhanced monitoring and resource allocation for patient safety. However, the rising prevalence of OSA, heterogeneity in disease severity, and lack of evidence for the efficacy of costly perioperative measures pose challenges. The development of effective screening and monitoring algorithms, alongside reliable risk predictors, is crucial for identifying OSA patients needing extended postoperative care. This review emphasizes a multidimensional approach in managing OSA patients throughout the perioperative period, aiming to optimize patient outcomes and minimize adverse outcomes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Evaluating multiplicity reporting in analgesic clinical trials: An analytical review

  European Journal of Pain · 2024-11-25

  reviewOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Analgesia trials often demands multiple comparisons to assess various treatment arms, outcomes, or repeated assessments. These multiple comparisons risk inflating the false positive rate. Multiplicity correction in recent analgesic randomized controlled trials (RCTs) remains unclear despite statistical method advancements and regulatory guidelines. Our study aimed to identify reporting inadequacies in multiple analysis adjustments and explanations to understand these deficiencies. DATABASES AND DATA TREATMENT: This review analysed RCTs from the European Journal of Pain, the Journal of Pain, and PAIN, published between January 2018 and December 2022. We included randomized, double-blind trials focusing on pain outcomes. Data extraction, managed by three researchers using predefined criteria, included trial characteristics, multiplicity presence, and correction methods. Descriptive statistical analyses included Fisher's exact, and Holm method for multiple comparisons. RESULTS: Out of 112 articles, 48 pre-specified a primary analysis plan. Multiple analyses were observed in 65 articles, with 60% adjusting for all comparisons, primarily using the Bonferroni method. Compared with previous studies, no significant changes in multiplicity correction practices were noted when stratified by trial type, size, and sponsor. CONCLUSIONS: The study reveals a persistent reliance on multiple comparisons in analgesic clinical trials without a corresponding increase in multiplicity corrections emphasizing a need for enhanced reporting and implementation of statistical adjustments. We acknowledge limitations in categorizing studies, the use of a surrogate for the trial stage, and sourcing data from journal webpages rather than a database. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: This study flags inadequate reporting on multiplicity correction in analgesic trials, stressing the risk of false positives and the urgent need for enhanced reporting to boost reproducibility.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Anesthetic Techniques for Ablation in Atrial Fibrillation: A Comparative Review

  Journal of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesia · 2024-05-06 · 7 citations

  reviewSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in Traumatic Brain Injury Outcomes: Insights From a Nationwide Analysis

  Neurosurgery · 2024-11-18 · 1 citations

  article

  BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: To examine the effects of racial and socioeconomic disparities on clinical outcomes: in-hospital mortality, discharge dispositions, and hospital length of stay (LOS) among patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) stratified by race and socioeconomic status (SES). METHODS: We conducted a retrospective analysis by analyzing the 1995-2015 Nationwide Inpatient Sample database. Adjusted logistic regressions and multinomial logistic regression models with and without propensity score matching were applied to investigate the effects of disparities on clinical outcomes. RESULTS: African American and Hispanic patients with TBI had a lower risk of in-hospital mortality, longer hospital LOS, and lower likelihood of being discharged to rehabilitation compared with White patients. The TBI patients with poor SES (pSES) had lower in-hospital mortality and were more likely to leave against medical advice compared with non-pSES TBI patients. CONCLUSION: Racial and socioeconomic disparities had significant influences on in-hospital mortality, discharge dispositions, and hospital LOS among the TBI population. Our study observed pSES TBI patients had a lower likelihood of in-hospital mortality than non-pSES patients, which may be partially attributed to the fact that most of the pSES TBI patients were hospitalized in urban teaching hospitals and hospitals with large bed size. In effect, our data suggest that the Social Safety Net of the United States is effective in preventing mortality in patients with TBI.

  PublisherDOI

• Predictors and Hospital Outcomes in Pregnant Patients Undergoing Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation: A Nationwide Study

  Obstetric Anesthesia Digest · 2023-05-23

  article

  ( Anesth Analg . 2022;135:1172–1179) Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) use, advanced cardiorespiratory support for patients with decreased cardiac or respiratory function, has been on the rise. ECMO for pregnant women has also become more common, however, studies on ECMO often lack inclusion of parturients. Given a lack of information regarding appropriate timing and indications for ECMO for pregnant women, this study seeks to identify in-hospital mortality and morbidity rates for parturients who underwent ECMO.

  PublisherDOI

• In Response

  Anesthesia & Analgesia · 2023-07-14

  articleOpen access

  The authors used the National Inpatient Sample database to identify pregnant patients who needed extracorporeal membrane oxygen (ECMO).The authors reported the indication for ECMO, prevalence of risk factors, and the association of peripartum outcomes with in-hospital mortality. 3 The leading indication for ECMO was respiratory failure, and the overall mortality rate was 30.5%.The majority of the patients who received ECMO were White (48.1%) and Black (32.7%). 3 Although Hispanics comprise 18.9% of the United States population, Hispanic (3.7%) parturients were disproportionately underrepresented in the study sample.It is established that pregnant and peripartum women with a diagnosis of COVID-19 have increased morbidity and need for ECMO support and mortality when compared to nonpregnant women with COVID-19. 4 In a retrospective study that compared survival of pregnant and peripartum with nonpregnant women with severe COVID-19, it was found that venovenous (VV) ECMO in this population was associated with increased survival when compared with a propensity-matched cohort of VV ECMO-supported nonpregnant women with COVID-19. 4 Moreover, this study found that pregnant and peripartum women supported on ECMO for COVID-19 were more likely to be Hispanic, Black, or Asian when compared to the nonpregnant cohort. 4 Furthermore, as highlighted above, Black and Hispanic pregnant women were disproportionately affected by COVID-19. 4 We applaud the authors' efforts in characterizing the use of vital resources, and we aim to highlight the importance of including demographic and socioeconomic data in our attempt to understand resource allocation and utilization.We agree that more work is needed in terms of investigating further patient characteristics with relation to predictors and hospital outcomes in pregnant patients undergoing ECMO.As highlighted above, it has long been established that there are extensive variations in maternal care based on racial and ethnic characteristics of patient populations.While this data is from 2010 to 2016, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the differences in outcomes among racial and ethnic groups.Therefore, it would be worthwhile to investigate more recent data and the impact of demographic and socioeconomic factors on ECMO outcomes, particularly in pregnancy.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Talha Mubashir

  University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

  57 shared

• Colin Suen

  University Health Network

  57 shared

• Frances Chung

  University Health Network

  47 shared

• Jean Wong

  University of Toronto

  44 shared

• Clodagh M. Ryan

  34 shared

• Mrinalini Balki

  Mount Sinai Hospital

  27 shared

• Oscar F. C. van den Bosch

  University Medical Center Utrecht

  26 shared

• Babak Mokhlesi

  Rush University

  25 shared