• Acta Anaesthesiol Scand · Jul 2013

    Comparative Study Clinical Trial

    Effects of age on minimum effective volume of local anesthetic for ultrasound-guided supraclavicular brachial plexus block.

    • Jadranka Pavičić Šarić, Vinko Vidjak, Katarina Tomulić, and Jelena Zenko.
    • Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, University Hospital Merkur, Zagreb, Croatia. jadranka.pavicic-saric@st.t-com.hr
    • Acta Anaesthesiol Scand. 2013 Jul 1;57(6):761-6.

    BackgroundInvolutional changes of peripheral nervous system occur with aging. The aim of the study was to determine the minimum effective volume of local anesthetic required to offer an effective ultrasound-guided supraclavicular brachial plexus block in 50% of middle-aged (< 50 years) and elderly (> 65 years) patients. We hypothesized reduced minimum effective volume of local anesthetic in elderly patients.MethodsMiddle-aged (n = 22) and elderly (n = 22) patients undergoing upper limb surgery received an ultrasound-guided supraclavicular brachial plexus block. Structural analysis of the brachial plexus in supraclavicular region was obtained by measuring the cross-sectional area. The prospective, observer-blinded study method is a previously validated step-up/step-down sequence model where the local anesthetic volume for the next patient is determined by the outcome of the previous block. The starting volume was 30 ml (50 : 50 mixture, 0.5%wt/vol levobupivacaine, 2%wt/vol lidocaine). The minimum effective volume of local anesthetic was determined using Dixon and Masey method.ResultsThe minimum effective local anesthetic volume significantly differed between middle-aged and elderly [23.0 ml, 95% confidence interval (CI) 13.7-32.3 vs. 11.9 ml, 95% CI 9.3-14.6; 95% CI of the difference 1.6-20.6, P = 0.027]. The cross-sectional area of brachial plexus was 0.95 ± 0.15 in middle-aged and 0.51 ± 0.06 cm(2) in elderly patients (P < 0.001).ConclusionsWithin the present study, we report a reduced minimum effective anesthetic volume for ultrasound-guided supraclavicular block in elderly patients. Additionally, smaller cross-sectional surface area of brachial plexus in the supraclavicular region was observed.© 2013 The Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica Foundation. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    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..

    hide…