Anesthesia and analgesia
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Nov 1996
Multicenter StudyEpidemiology and morbidity of regional anesthesia in children: a one-year prospective survey of the French-Language Society of Pediatric Anesthesiologists.
We report the results of a prospective study on the practice of pediatric regional anesthesia by the French-Language Society of Pediatric Anesthesiologists (ADARPEF) during the period from May 1, 1993 to April 30, 1994. This study was designed to provide data concerning the epidemiology of regional anesthesia and its complications in a totally anonymous way. Data from 85,412 procedures, 61,003 pure general anesthetics and 24,409 anesthetics including a regional block, were prospectively collected. ⋯ This prospective study, based on a large and representative series of pediatric anesthetics, establishes the safety of regional anesthesia in children of all ages. It provides new insights on the practice of regional blocks and reveals that complications are rare and minor as they occur most often in the operating room and are readily managed by experienced anesthesiologists with resuscitative equipment at hand. The extremely low incidence of complications (zero in this study) after peripheral nerve blocks should encourage pediatric anesthesiologists to use them more often when they are appropriate, in the place of a central block.