-
- Kurian P Thomas, Shaji Sainudeen, Suraj Jose, Mansour Y Nadhari, and Philippe B Macaire.
- Department of Anesthesiology, Rashid Hospital-Trauma Centre, Dubai Health Authority, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
- Pain Ther. 2016 Jun 1; 5 (1): 115-22.
IntroductionSternal fractures are a painful condition which can result in pulmonary morbidity if not treated promptly. The management of isolated fractures has changed from hospital to home-based treatment, provided other major injuries have been excluded. Pain management is the mainstay of treatment. In this case report, we describe how a parasternal block under ultrasound guidance for sternal fracture provided better analgesia thereby improving ventilation.Case ReportA 26-year-old man was admitted to the emergency department following a road traffic accident. His initial evaluation revealed a radio-cubital displaced fracture at the elbow level with severe tenderness over the sternum. Chest X-ray on admission did not reveal any abnormality. On preoperative checkup he was found to have altered chest mechanics with severe pain and tenderness over the sternum. Arterial blood gas (ABG) analysis showed respiratory acidosis. Pulmonary electrical impedance tomography showed hypoventilation of anterior portions of both lungs. An ultrasound examination of the sternum showed a fractured sternum with complete disjunction. An ultrasound-guided bilateral parasternal block was performed which resulted in efficient analgesia and thereby improved his ventilation as indicated by the improvement in ABG.ConclusionTimely and proper analgesia can reduce the pulmonary morbidity in sternal fractures. Of the various analgesic techniques, parasternal block under ultrasound guidance is a relatively simple, safe, and target-specific procedure that can provide efficient pain relief.
Notes
Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
- Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as
*italics*
,_underline_
or**bold**
. - Superscript can be denoted by
<sup>text</sup>
and subscript<sub>text</sub>
. - Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines
1. 2. 3.
, hyphens-
or asterisks*
. - Links can be included with:
[my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
- Images can be included with:
![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
- For footnotes use
[^1](This is a footnote.)
inline. - Or use an inline reference
[^1]
to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document[^1]: This is a long footnote.
.