Regional anesthesia and pain medicine
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Sep 2014
Review Meta AnalysisUltrasound-Guided Interventional Procedures in Pain Medicine: A Review of Anatomy, Sonoanatomy, and Procedures. Part V: Knee Joint.
Ultrasound-guided injection in pain medicine is emerging as a popular technique for pain intervention. It can be applied to the intra-articular injection of the knee joint. The first objective of this review was to describe and summarize the anatomy and sonoanatomy of the knee and associated structures relevant for intra-articular injection. The second objective was to examine the feasibility, accuracy, and effectiveness of injections as well as injection techniques.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Sep 2014
Comparative StudyRegional Anesthesia, Time to Hospital Discharge, and In-Hospital Mortality: A Propensity Score Matched Analysis.
The anesthetic technique used during surgery can affect postoperative length of stay and outcomes, even after controlling for other clinically important factors. This study evaluated the impact of regional anesthesia (RA) compared with general anesthesia (GA) on the amount of time between leaving the operating room and hospital discharge and the odds of in-hospital mortality. ⋯ The study data provide evidence that median time to discharge is shorter when RA is used instead of GA, controlling for other clinically important factors. Additionally, RA use during surgery was associated with a decrease in in-hospital mortality. When an appropriate option, RA may facilitate faster hospital discharge and improve patient outcomes.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Sep 2014
Development of an Ultrasound Phantom for Spinal Injections With 3-Dimensional Printing.
This report describes a method for producing anatomically detailed, low-cost ultrasound phantoms of the spine with 3-dimensional printing. An implementation that involves representing a portion of the lumbar spine and the ligamentum flavum with 2 different printing materials and the surrounding soft tissues with agar gel is presented. ⋯ Ultrasound phantoms that are derived directly from patient anatomy have strong potential as learning tools for ultrasound-guided spinal insertions, and they could be used as preprocedural planning tools in cases involving pathologies, implants, or abnormal anatomies. Three-dimensional printing is a promising method for producing low-cost phantoms with designs that can be readily shared across clinical institutions.