Regional anesthesia and pain medicine
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Jan 2009
ReviewUltrasound-guided regional anesthesia and analgesia: a qualitative systematic review.
Ultrasound guidance has become popular for performance of regional anesthesia and analgesia. This systematic review summarizes existing evidence for superior risk to benefit profiles for ultrasound versus other techniques. Medline was systematically searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing ultrasound to another technique, and for large (n > 100) prospective case series describing experience with ultrasound-guided blocks. ⋯ Current evidence does not suggest that use of ultrasound improves success of regional anesthesia versus most other techniques. However, ultrasound was not inferior for efficacy, did not increase risk, and offers other potential patient-oriented benefits. All RCTs are rather small, thus completion of large RCTs and case series are encouraged to confirm findings.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Jan 2009
Randomized Controlled TrialUltrasound improves the success rate of a sural nerve block at the ankle.
: During ankle block performance, anesthetizing the sural nerve is important for generating complete anesthesia of the lateral aspect of the foot. We hypothesized that an ultrasound-guided perivascular approach, utilizing the lesser saphenous vein as a reference, would prove more successful than a conventional approach based on surface landmarks. ⋯ : Ultrasound guidance using the lesser saphenous vein as a reference point results in a more complete and longer lasting sural nerve block than does a traditional approach using surface landmarks.