Minerva anestesiologica
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Recent surveys show that many patients still receive inadequate post-surgical analgesia, this problem is international in character. Analgesia techniques like patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) and spinal opioids alone or in combination with local anaesthetics provide superior pain relief compared to intermittent i.m. injections of opioids. Patient satisfaction with these techniques is high; however, reduced pain and suffering or high patient satisfaction is not considered sufficient in this age of diminished health care budgets. ⋯ Evidence that peripheral nerve blocks are better than PCA and safer than epidural increases. One reason why improved outcome is difficult to demonstrate is that pain management strategies are not integrated with overall perioperative care and postoperative rehabilitation of the patient. The importance of a good APS in developing cost-effective, evidence-based pain treatment strategies for different surgical procedures should not be underestimated.
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Peripheral neural blockade techniques are commonly used procedures to provide perioperative anesthesia and analgesia. Several continuous infusion catheter techniques have been described to extend the use of peripheral neural blockade into the postoperative period as an effective method of providing pain management. The analgesic benefit of continuous local anesthetic peripheral block in the management of postoperative pain is primarily related to the properties of providing intense analgesia thereby reducing perioperative opioid requirements and opioid-related side effects and promoting early recovery of postoperative activity. ⋯ The sciatic nerve is the largest nerve in the body and it lies deep in the posterior thigh. According to its anatomy, the sciatic nerve can then be reached at different levels from the parasacral space to the popliteal fossa, ideally identifying a sciatic line running from the inferior border of the gluteus maximus muscle between the greater throcanter and the ischiatic tuberosity to the popliteal fossa. A variety of continuous peripheral blocks have been described in this paper including continuous sciatic block at several levels (para-sacral nerve block, subgluteal sciatic nerve block) and popliteal nerve block.
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In this review, some of the newer developments in regional anaesthesia (RA) are discussed. The relationship between paraesthesiae and nerve stimulator responses has been shown to be unclear, and sometimes at a needle tip location where a paraesthesia is found, there is no response to the nerve stimulator. It is recommended to use whichever end point is found first. ⋯ The use of PCA for blocks as well as intravenously and the extension of the use of RA into the home are important developments. The beneficial effects of RA on postoperative morbidity and mortality are becoming clearer, and the introduction of the two new local anaesthetic agents, ropivacaine and levobupivacaine have improved safety. There has, however, been very slow progress in the development of long awaited ultralong acting local anaesthetics or in the introduction of slow release formulations.
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Bupivacaine has been the most widely used local anaesthetic for years. Recent studies point out levobupivacaine, an S(-) isomer of the racemic bupivacaine. This review shows the properties of levobupivacaine describing the animal and human volunteers studies on toxicity and the first clinical studies in obstetrics, general surgery and paediatrics. ⋯ Potency is equal for levo- and bupivacaine according to MLAC in labour analgesia. Studies in paediatrics confirm effective analgesia but show less intensity of motor block. The reduced toxicity of levobupivacaine gives wider safety margin in the daily clinical practice both for single shot and for continuous infusion, intraoperatively during various surgical procedures and for the postoperative pain control and analgesia in labour.
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Caudal block is the single most popular regional anesthetic technique used in infants and children. A review of the literature concerning complications related to this technique reveals that it is safe and it has a low failure rate. Probably the incidence of complications of caudal block is 7/10.000, the lowest of all the central blocks. ⋯ Caudal morphine has been used successfully for postoperative analgesia in children of all ages, including neonates after open-heart surgery. Possible complications of this technique are: local anesthetics overdose, vascular penetration and intravascular injection of local anesthetics, dural puncture and total spinal anaesthesia, intraosseous injection, infections, meningitis, respiratory depression (when morphine is used). Authors analyze all these complications and the safety rules for their prevention.