Regional anesthesia and pain medicine
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Mar 2024
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter StudyCooled radiofrequency ablation versus standard medical management for chronic sacroiliac joint pain: a multicenter, randomized comparative effectiveness study.
Low back pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide, with sacroiliac joint pain comprising up to 30% of cases of axial lower back pain. Conservative therapies provide only modest relief. Although placebo-controlled trials show efficacy for sacral lateral branch cooled radiofrequency ablation, there are no comparative effectiveness studies. ⋯ In patients with sacroiliac joint pain, cooled radiofrequency ablation provided statistically superior improvements across the spectrum of patient outcomes compared with standard medical management.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Apr 2024
ReviewFascial plane approach to anesthetizing the radial, median, and ulnar nerves: an educational review.
Brachial plexus block provides effective anesthesia and analgesia for upper extremity surgery but requires injection of large anesthetic volumes near major vascular structures. Moreover, the extensive motor and sensory loss produced by plexus block often exceeds the neural distribution needed for corresponding surgical procedures. High-resolution ultrasound facilitates selective nerve blocks at nearly every level of the upper extremity. ⋯ Selective fascial plane injections can provide surgical anesthesia and postoperative analgesia in settings that might otherwise require much larger volumes of local anesthetic. These selective nerve blocks can match sensory loss with the anatomic pain distribution in each patient. Reliable techniques for selective nerve blocks of the upper extremity can expand the capabilities for ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Mar 2024
ReviewDorsal root ganglion: a key to understanding the therapeutic effects of the erector spinae plane (ESP) and other intertransverse process blocks?
Since its description in 2016, the erector spinae plane block (ESPB) has become a widely employed regional anesthetic technique and kindled interest in a range of related techniques, collectively termed intertransverse process blocks. There has been ongoing controversy over mechanism of action of the ESPB, mainly due to incongruities between results of cutaneous sensory testing, clinical efficacy studies, and investigations into the neural structures that are reached by injected local anesthetic (LA). ⋯ We hypothesize that the DRG, due to its unique and complex microarchitecture, represents a key therapeutic target for modulation of nociceptive signaling in regional anesthesia. This paper discusses how the anatomical and physiological characteristics of the DRG may be one of the factors underpinning the clinical analgesia observed in ESPB and other intertransverse process blocks.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Mar 2024
ReviewLocal anesthetic dosing and toxicity of adult truncal catheters: a narrative review of published practice.
Anesthesiologists frequently use truncal catheters for postoperative pain control but with limited characterization of dosing and toxicity. ⋯ Practitioners frequently administer ropivacaine and bupivacaine above the package insert limits, at doses associated with toxicity. Patient safety would benefit from more specific recommendations to limit excessive dose and risk of toxicity.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Nov 2023
ReviewAssociation between perioperative neuraxial local anesthetic neurotoxicity and arachnoiditis: a narrative review of published reports.
Arachnoiditis is a rare but devastating disorder caused by various insults, one of which is purported to be local anesthetic neurotoxicity following neuraxial blockade. However, the relationship between local anesthetics administered into the neuraxis and the development of arachnoiditis has not been clearly elucidated. ⋯ The existing literature attributing arachnoiditis to local anesthetic neurotoxicity is largely outdated, incomplete, and/or confounded by other potential causes, and thus insufficient to characterize the features and strength of any association.