Aseptic precautions for epidural blood patch.

headache symptoms compared with patients administered blood patch, and should have been excluded from this analysis, in our opinion. Indeed, these women could be considered ‘treatment successes’, since they received analgesia sufficient to be able to continue childcare at home, headache-free at one week, without exposure to the risks of epidural blood patch. It follows that a similar proportion of the ‘prophylactic’ group might have had these outcomes had they been managed conservatively, but were exposed to those risks, in the event. Extrapolated to our anaesthetic department, the author’s data suggest that 18 prophylactic blood patches per 100 women could be administered unnecessarily to women who might otherwise receive conservative management to achieve the endpoint of ‘no headache at one week’.