• Chien-Kun Ting and Yin Chang.
• 1Institute of Biomedical Engineering, National Yang-Ming University, and Department of Anesthesiology, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, 155 Sec. 2 Li-Nong St., Bei-Tou Dist., Taipei, Taiwan.
• Opt Express. 2010 May 24; 18 (11): 11138-47.

AbstractTechnique of loss-of-resistance in epidural block is commonly used for epidural anesthesia in humans with approximately 90% successful rate. However, it may be one of the most difficult procedures to learn for anesthesia residents in hospital. A two-wavelength (650 nm and 532 nm) fiber-optical method has been developed according to the characteristic reflectance spectra of ex-vivo porcine tissues, which are associated with the needle insertion to localize the epidural space (ES). In an in-vivo study in piglets showed that the reflected lights from ES and its surrounding tissue ligamentum flavum (LF) are highly distinguishable. This indicates that this technique has potential to localize the ES on the spot without the help of additional guiding assistance.

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