Regional anesthesia and pain medicine
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Oct 2018
A Cadaver Study Investigating Structures Encountered by the Needle During a Retroclavicular Approach to Infraclavicular Brachial Plexus Block.
Retroclavicular block is designed to overcome the negative aspects of the commonly utilized ultrasound-guided parasagittal approach to the infraclavicular block. However, this approach necessitates the needle traversing an area posterior to the clavicle inaccessible to ultrasound wave conduction. This study sought to document the structures vulnerable to needle injury during a retroclavicular block. ⋯ The suprascapular nerve is consistently in the path of the block needle posterior to the clavicle. This raises the possibility of risk of injury to the suprascapular nerve when using this approach to the brachial plexus. Vascular injury is also possible deep to the clavicle, and because of the noncompressible location, caution is advised in patients with disordered coagulation.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Oct 2018
A Novel Technique of Ultrasound-Guided Selective Mandibular Nerve Block With a Lateral Pterygoid Plate Approach: A Cadaveric Study.
We aimed to describe a novel technique of ultrasound-guided selective mandibular nerve block with a lateral pterygoid plate (LPP) approach and to assess its feasibility and accuracy in a soft cadaver model. ⋯ This study was registered at the Thai Clinical Trials Registry (ClinicalTrials.in.th), identifier TCTR20160601004.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Oct 2018
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative StudyAn Ultrasound-Guided Lateral Approach for Proximal Sciatic Nerve Block: A Randomized Comparison With the Anterior Approach and a Cadaveric Evaluation.
The lateral and anterior approaches for proximal sciatic nerve (SN) block can be used in patients lying supine. We assume that the posterior femoral cutaneous nerve (PFCN) is simultaneously blocked more often via the lateral approach than via the anterior approach, given the proximity of these 2 nerves at the injection level. However, locating the SN is difficult when using the original landmark-based lateral approach. We have introduced ultrasound guidance to alleviate the technical difficulty of the lateral approach and tested the hypothesis that an ultrasound-guided lateral approach would achieve PFCN block more often than the ultrasound-guided anterior approach for SN block. ⋯ This study was registered at UMIN Clinical Trials Registry, identifier UMIN000026748.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Oct 2018
The Impact of Tobacco Cigarette Smoking on Spinal Cord Stimulation Effectiveness in Chronic Spine-Related Pain Patients.
Despite the observation that select nicotine receptor agonists have analgesic effects, smokers report higher pain scores and more functional impairments than lifelong nonsmokers, attributable to exaggerated stress responses, receptor desensitization, and altered pharmacokinetics compounded by accelerated structural damage resulting from impaired bone healing, osteoporosis, and advancement of disk disease. We hypothesized that smoking diminishes the analgesic response to spinal cord stimulation (SCS) in patients with chronic spine-related pain conditions. ⋯ Among our SCS-implanted sample, a positive correlation was observed between tobacco use and degree of pain reduction as early as 12 months postimplant; this was evident by the reported higher pain scores and opioid use in current smokers in comparison with former smokers and lifelong nonsmokers.