Anesthesia and analgesia
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Apr 2009
ReviewA systematic review of randomized controlled trials that evaluate strategies to avoid epidural vein cannulation during obstetric epidural catheter placement.
In this systematic review, we evaluated the evidence for seven strategies which have been proposed to minimize the incidence of epidural vein cannulation during lumbar epidural catheter placement in pregnant women. ⋯ The risk of intravascular placement of a lumbar epidural catheter in pregnancy may be reduced with the lateral patient position, fluid predistension, a single orifice catheter, a wire-embedded polyurethane epidural catheter and limiting the depth of catheter insertion to 6 cm or less. In general, low manuscript quality weakens the strength of these conclusions.