• Zhi Yuen Beh, HasanM ShahnazMSDepartment of Anaesthesiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. shahnaz@ummc.edu.my., Hou Yee Lai, Normadiah M Kassim, Siti Rosmani Md Zin, and Kin Fah Chin.
• Department of Anaesthesiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. michaelbzy@gmail.com.
• BMC Anesthesiol. 2015 Jul 21; 15: 105.

BackgroundThe brachial plexus at the infraclavicular level runs deeper compared to its course proximally, giving rise to impaired needle visualisation due to the steep angle of needle insertion with the current ultrasound-guided approach. A new posterior parasagittal in-plane ultrasound-guided infraclavicular approach was introduced to improve needle visibility. However no further follow up study was done.MethodsWe performed a case series and a cadaveric dissection to assess its feasibility in a single centre, University of Malaya Medical Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from November 2012 to October 2013. After obtaining approval from the Medical Ethics Committee, University Malaya Medical Centre, 18 patients undergoing upper limb surgery were prospectively recruited. A cadaveric dissection was also performed. The endpoints of this study were the success rate, performance time, total anaesthesia-related time, quality of anaesthesia and any incidence of complications.ResultsAll patients had 100 % success rate. The imaging time, needling time and performance time were comparable with previously published study. There were no adverse events encountered in this study. The cadaveric dissection revealed a complete spread of methylene blue dye over the brachial plexus.ConclusionThis study demonstrated that the posterior parasagittal in-plane approach is a feasible and reliable technique with high success rate. Future studies shall compare this technique with the conventional lateral parasagittal in-plane approach.Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT02312453 . Registered on 8 December 2014.

20 keywords...

hide…