Current opinion in anaesthesiology
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Curr Opin Anaesthesiol · Aug 2003
Brachial plexus blocks: infusions and other mechanisms to provide prolonged analgesia.
Regional anesthesia has numerous benefits for upper extremity surgery such as improved analgesia, opioid sparing and reduced side effects. However, many of these advantages are lost after block regression. Recently, several strategies such as continuous ambulatory local anesthetic infusions and adjuvants that may potentiate analgesia after a brachial plexus block have been described and investigated. This review will highlight and place in context this recent work. ⋯ The advances and techniques recently described demonstrate that prolonging analgesia after brachial plexus blocks is possible. This may be accomplished via several different approaches and mechanisms resulting in improved patient analgesia and side effects.