Efficacy of Ultrasound-Guided Local Anesthetic Injection Into or Around the Sciatic Nerve for Lower Limb Anesthesia

Summary

This study was designed to assess whether the injection of local anesthetic into the nerve (intraneural), as opposed to around it (perineural), requires a shorter time to develop surgical anesthesia of the lower leg. The investigators will compare the two types of injection using the same drug, so as to determine if there is an actual difference onset time. They will also examine the overall success rate of either kind of sciatic nerve blocks as the sole anesthetic for non-emergent orthopedic surgery. The safety of these procedures will be examined by in-hospital and phone-call follow-up contacts.

Timeline

Start

2011-12

Primary completion

2012-09

Completion

2012-12

Publications

• Background Tran DQ, Dugani S, Pham K, Al-Shaafi A, Finlayson RJ. A randomized comparison between subepineural and conventional ultrasound-guided popliteal sciatic nerve block. Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2011 Nov-Dec;36(6):548-52. doi: 10.1097/AAP.0b013e318235f566.
• Background Andersen HL, Andersen SL, Tranum-Jensen J. Injection inside the paraneural sheath of the sciatic nerve: direct comparison among ultrasound imaging, macroscopic anatomy, and histologic analysis. Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2012 Jul-Aug;37(4):410-4. doi: 10.1097/AAP.0b013e31825145f3.
• Background Robards C, Hadzic A, Somasundaram L, Iwata T, Gadsden J, Xu D, Sala-Blanch X. Intraneural injection with low-current stimulation during popliteal sciatic nerve block. Anesth Analg. 2009 Aug;109(2):673-7. doi: 10.1213/ane.0b013e3181aa2d73.

Drugs

Indications