• Br J Anaesth · Jul 2020

    Brachial plexus block with ultrasound guidance for upper-limb trauma surgery in children: a retrospective cohort study of 565 cases.

    • Markus Zadrazil, Philipp Opfermann, Peter Marhofer, Anna I Westerlund, and Thomas Haider.
    • Department of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
    • Br J Anaesth. 2020 Jul 1; 125 (1): 104-109.

    BackgroundUpper-limb trauma is a common indication for surgery in children, and general anaesthesia remains the method of choice for these procedures, even though suitable techniques of brachial plexus block are available and fast provision of regional anaesthesia offers a number of distinct advantages.MethodsA retrospective analysis was performed of the data of a large cohort of children undergoing ultrasound-guided brachial plexus blocks during a 4-yr period at a major trauma centre with a catchment area of 3.5 million. A total of 565 cases were sourced from two independently operating patient documentation systems. Patient data were stratified into age groups with block success as the primary outcome parameter. The influence of age on the incidence of block failure was assessed with logistic regression.ResultsThe block failure rate was 5.1%, starting at 1.2% in the youngest (0-3 yr), then continuously increasing up to 12.5% in the oldest (15-18 yr) but also smallest group. Age emerged as an independent predictor of block failure with an odds ratio of 1.115 and a 95% confidence interval of 1.014-1.226 (P=0.025). No complications were observed.ConclusionsIn a cohort of children receiving real-world care, with regional blocks performed by a range of anaesthetists with different skill levels, a success rate of 94.9% for upper-limb blocks in children under various levels of sedation was observed. Upper-limb blocks can be performed with high probability of success and an excellent margin of safety; this particularly applies to small children.Clinical Trial RegistrationNCT03842423.Copyright © 2020 British Journal of Anaesthesia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

      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…

What will the 'Medical Journal of You' look like?

Start your free 21 day trial now.

We guarantee your privacy. Your email address will not be shared.