Regional anesthesia and pain medicine
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Jan 2019
Preprocedural checklist for regional anesthesia: impact on the incidence of wrong site nerve blockade (an 8-year perspective).
The term "Wrong-Site Surgery (WSS)" is commonly associated with surgical procedures; however, The Joint Commission (TJC) considers any invasive procedure, not just a surgical procedure, performed on the wrong side, at the wrong site, or on the wrong patient to be a WSS. For anesthesia providers, this means that a wrong-site nerve block (WSNB) also constitutes a WSS and would be considered a sentinel event by TJC. In an attempt to combat WSNB, the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine published guidelines in 2014 recommending the use of a preprocedural checklist before performing regional blocks. The effectiveness of such a checklist, however, to reduce the occurrence of WSNB has not yet been demonstrated. We hypothesized that the introduction of a preprocedural checklist specific for regional anesthesia would be associated with a lower rate of WSNB procedures. ⋯ Implementation of a regional anesthesia specific preprocedural checklist was associated with a significantly lower incidence of WSNB procedures. While prospective controlled studies would be required to demonstrate causation, this study suggests that for regional anesthesia procedures, a preprocedural checklist may positively impact patient safety.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Jan 2019
RNA expression preoperatively and postoperatively following total knee replacement: a pilot study in patients with and without chronic postsurgical pain.
Differences in gene expression may provide insight into the biological pathways involved in chronic postsurgical pain (CPSP). We compared blood RNA microarrays preoperatively and postoperatively following total knee arthroplasty (TKA) in patients with and without CPSP. ⋯ Despite a lack of clinical differences, patients who develop CPSP have upregulated pain pathways preoperatively; however, only the chemokine pathway remained differentially upregulated at 6 months postsurgery.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Jan 2019
Complete relief of CRPS-associated pain during magnesium infusion in a patient with postpartum preeclampsia.
A pregnant patient with chronic regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and indwelling spinal cord stimulator presented with twin gestation for induction of preterm labor due to preeclampsia. Intravenous magnesium was initiated and a lumbar epidural catheter was placed uneventfully for labor analgesia. The patient reported complete relief of her CRPS-associated pain during and for 24 hours after delivery, while receiving intravenous magnesium, with her pain symptoms returning shortly after discontinuing magnesium. To our knowledge, there are no case reports that describe CRPS-associated pain relief while on peripartum magnesium therapy.