Articles: nerve-block.
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Urologia internationalis · Jan 2003
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical TrialPeriprostatic nerve blockade before transrectal ultrasound-guided prostate biopsy: the Ankara Numune experience.
To assess the efficacy and morbidity of periprostatic local anesthesia before transrectal ultrasound-guided biopsy of the prostate. ⋯ Periprostatic local anesthesia before prostate biopsy is a safe and easy method to increase patient comfort during the procedure.
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Continuous interscalene brachial plexus blockade (CIBPB) in a hospital setting can provide excellent surgical conditions and postoperative analgesia for major shoulder surgery. This is a case report of four patients on the efficacy and advantages of CIBPB for postoperative analgesia at home. ⋯ The use of CIBPB for 72 hr in patients undergoing major ambulatory shoulder surgery can result in good analgesia with minimal opioid requirement, cost savings and possibly improvement in outcome measures.
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Adding epinephrine to lidocaine solutions for peripheral nerve block potentiates and prolongs the action, but by incompletely understood mechanisms. In an effort to discriminate the pharmacokinetic from the pharmacodynamic effects of epinephrine, the authors measured the lidocaine content of peripheral nerve over the course of block produced by 0.5% lidocaine, with and without epinephrine, and correlated it with the degree of analgesia. ⋯ Adding epinephrine to lidocaine solutions increases the intensity and duration of sciatic nerve block in the rat. The early increase in intensity is not matched with an increase in intraneural lidocaine content at these early times, although the prolonged duration of block by epinephrine appears to correspond to an enlarged lidocaine content in nerve at later times, as if a very slowly emptying "effector compartment" received a larger share of the dose. The increase in early analgesia without increased lidocaine content may be explained by a pharmacodynamic action of epinephrine that transiently enhances lidocaine's potency, but also by a pharmacokinetic effect that alters the distribution of the same net content of lidocaine within the nerve.
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Acta Anaesthesiol Belg · Jan 2003
Direction and side used to determine the extent of sensory block after subarachnoid anesthesia do not influence the level of the block.
Methods of sensory testing in neuraxial anesthesia may supposedly account for different results in reporting the extent of the block. To determine whether the caudad to cephalad versus the cephalad to caudad direction as well as the side of testing, left versus right, may affect the assessment of sensory block after subarachnoid anesthesia, two groups of patients undergoing transurethral surgery were studied. One group, 44 patients were tested for the influence of direction of block determination and another group 50 patients for the influence of side. ⋯ In 44 patients, the level of sensory block determined 20, 25 and 30 minutes after the subarachnoid anesthesia in a cephalad to caudad direction was found at the T11 dermatome at each time point and did not differ when compared to the levels determined following the caudad to cephalad direction. In the second study in a different group of 50 patients, the level of sensory block 20, 25 and 30 minutes after the subarachnoid injection was found at the T11 dermatome on the right side at each time point and did not differ from the level determined on the left side. We conclude that the level of sensory block after subarachnoid anesthesia with lidocaine is independent of the direction of testing and the side the assessment is performed using the pressure palpator.
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Sciatic nerve block is useful for surgery below the knee both intra- and postoperatively. Several techniques to insert a catheter at the knee level or higher have been described but need mobilization (lateral decubitus) of the patient. We describe novel landmarks, using a high lateral approach, to block the sciatic nerve without moving the patient. ⋯ The lateral technique for sciatic nerve anesthesia and catheter insertion allows patients to remain in the supine position for performance of the block and catheter insertion, and results in a high rate of homogeneous anesthesia and a low incidence of side effects.