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The Role of Continuous Peripheral Nerve Blocks

Authors :
José Aguirre
Alicia Del Moral
Irina Cobo
Alain Borgeat
Stephan Blumenthal
Source :
Anesthesiology Research and Practice, Vol 2012 (2012)
Publication Year :
2012
Publisher :
Hindawi Limited, 2012.

Abstract

A continuous peripheral nerve block (cPNB) is provided in the hospital and ambulatory setting. The most common use of CPNBs is in the peri- and postoperative period but different indications have been described like the treatment of chronic pain such as cancer-induced pain, complex regional pain syndrome or phantom limb pain. The documented benefits strongly depend on the analgesia quality and include decreasing baseline/dynamic pain, reducing additional analgesic requirements, decrease of postoperative joint inflammation and inflammatory markers, sleep disturbances and opioid-related side effects, increase of patient satisfaction and ambulation/functioning improvement, an accelerated resumption of passive joint range-of-motion, reducing time until discharge readiness, decrease in blood loss/blood transfusions, potential reduction of the incidence of postsurgical chronic pain and reduction of costs. Evidence deriving from randomized controlled trials suggests that in some situations there are also prolonged benefits of regional anesthesia after catheter removal in addition to the immediate postoperative effects. Unfortunately, there are only few data demonstrating benefits after catheter removal and the evidence of medium- or long-term improvements in health-related quality of life measures is still lacking. This review will give an overview of the advantages and adverse effects of cPNBs.

Subjects

Subjects :
Anesthesiology
RD78.3-87.3

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
16876962 and 16876970
Volume :
2012
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Anesthesiology Research and Practice
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.9d7080e8b86412abbf35ea70ea935e4
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/560879