Regional anesthesia and pain medicine
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Apr 2024
Review Meta AnalysisDoes industry funding and study location impact findings from randomized controlled trials of spinal cord stimulation? A systematic review and meta-analysis.
Concerns have been raised that effects observed in studies of spinal cord stimulation (SCS) funded by industry have not been replicated in non-industry-funded studies and that findings may differ based on geographical location where the study was conducted. ⋯ All outcomes of SCS versus usual care were not significantly different between studies funded by industry and those independent from industry. Pain intensity score and change in pain intensity from baseline for comparisons of HF-SCS to LF-SCS seem to be impacted by industry funding.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Apr 2024
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter StudyDurable multimodal and holistic response for physiologic closed-loop spinal cord stimulation supported by objective evidence from the EVOKE double-blind randomized controlled trial.
Chronic pain patients may experience impairments in multiple health-related domains. The design and interpretation of clinical trials of chronic pain interventions, however, remains primarily focused on treatment effects on pain intensity. This study investigates a novel, multidimensional holistic treatment response to evoked compound action potential-controlled closed-loop versus open-loop spinal cord stimulation as well as the degree of neural activation that produced that treatment response. ⋯ The results of this study suggest that closed-loop spinal cord stimulation can provide sustained clinically meaningful improvements in multiple domains and provide holistic improvement in the long-term for patients with chronic refractory pain.
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Primary failure of thoracic epidural analgesia (TEA) remains an important clinical problem, whose incidence can exceed 20% in teaching centers. Since loss-of-resistance (LOR) constitutes the most popular method to identify the thoracic epidural space, the etiology of primary TEA failure can often be attributed to LOR's low specificity. Interspinous ligamentous cysts, non-fused ligamenta flava, paravertebral muscles, intermuscular planes, and thoracic paravertebral spaces can all result in non-epidural LORs. ⋯ In the hands of experienced operators, real-time ultrasound guidance of the epidural needle has been demonstrated to provide comparable efficacy and efficiency to fluoroscopy. Further research is required to determine the most cost-effective confirmatory modality as well as the best adjuncts for novice operators and for patients with challenging anatomy. Moreover, future trials should elucidate if fluoroscopy and electrical stimulation could potentially decrease the secondary failure rate of TEA, and if a combination of confirmatory modalities could outperform individual ones.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Apr 2024
ReviewFascial plane approach to anesthetizing the radial, median, and ulnar nerves: an educational review.
Brachial plexus block provides effective anesthesia and analgesia for upper extremity surgery but requires injection of large anesthetic volumes near major vascular structures. Moreover, the extensive motor and sensory loss produced by plexus block often exceeds the neural distribution needed for corresponding surgical procedures. High-resolution ultrasound facilitates selective nerve blocks at nearly every level of the upper extremity. ⋯ Selective fascial plane injections can provide surgical anesthesia and postoperative analgesia in settings that might otherwise require much larger volumes of local anesthetic. These selective nerve blocks can match sensory loss with the anatomic pain distribution in each patient. Reliable techniques for selective nerve blocks of the upper extremity can expand the capabilities for ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Apr 2024
Does the impact of peripheral nerve blocks vary by age and comorbidity subgroups? A nationwide population-based study.
A large body of literature suggests that peripheral nerve blockade (PNB) is associated with improved perioperative outcomes in total hip and knee joint arthroplasty patients. However, it is unclear to what extent this association exists across patient subgroups based on age and health status. ⋯ PNB use is associated with beneficial effects more commonly observed among patients with a lower comorbidity burden, without a clear pattern of association with patient age.