May 26, 2003
Catheter-based anaesthesia
Eurotimes May 2003
DELIVERING local anaesthesia with a flexible, indwelling catheter during retinal surgery procedures may offer advantages over the traditional single needle retrobulbar approach, a new study suggests.The technique is similar to the epidural catheters A team of Canadian and German researchers evaluated the novel anaesthetic technique in a series of 100 pars plana vitrectomies in 88 patients. The procedures ranged from 20 to 220 minutes. All patients received initial retrobulbar injections of 7.0ml mepivacaine 2%, after which a 28-gauge flexible catheter was introduced into the retrobulbar space.During surgery, patients were asked to rank their pain on a scale of one (no pain) to 10 (intense pain). The team provided 2.0ml of a local anaesthetic via the catheter whenever the pain level exceeded three on the scale. The catheter can be left in for two or three days after surgery. This means that local anaesthesia can be delivered for postoperative pain relief using smaller amounts of drug than provided by other routes. However, patients should not be sent home with the indwelling catheters.
Posted by mehdi khanlari at May 26, 2003 11:08 PM