a rare anatomical innervation of the musculocutaneous nerve m.m. taghavi msc , m. shariati kohbanani msc , s.m. seyedmirzaee md received: 24/09/06 sent for revision: 20/02/07 received revised manuscript: 07/04/07 accepted: 27/05/07 background and objectives: anatomically the musculocutaneous nerve (c5,6 ) is a branch of lateral cord of the brachial plexus and its motor nerve fibers innervates t...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Perineural dexamethasone prolongs the duration of single-injection peripheral nerve block when added to the local anesthetic solution. Postulated systemic mechanisms of action along with theoretical safety concerns have prompted the investigation of intravenous dexamethasone as an alternative, with decidedly mixed results. We aimed to confirm that addition of intraveno...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE The use of ultrasound for needle correct placement and local anesthetic spread monitoring helped to reduce the volume of local anesthetic required for peripheral nerve blocks. There are few studies of the minimum effective volume of local anesthetic for axillary brachial plexus block. The aim of this study was to determine the minimum effective volume (VE90) of 0.5% bup...

BACKGROUND Hypothermia is common during arthroscopic shoulder surgery under general anesthesia, and anesthetic-impaired thermoregulation is thought to be the major cause of hypothermia. This prospective, randomized, double-blind study was designed to compare perioperative temperature during arthroscopic shoulder surgery with interscalene brachial plexus block (IBPB) followed by general anesthes...

BACKGROUND Conventional approaches to brachial plexus blocks may not cover the suprascapular nerve. Accordingly, after shoulder arthroscopy, sensation from the posterior part of the shoulder is commonly spared. Most previous research involving suprascapular nerve blocks described single-injection techniques. However, with the widespread availability and fairly reasonable cost of disposable infu...

The authors present their experience of > 1000 axillary brachial plexus blocks performed over 13 years (1990-2002). Using a technique that involves the location of individual nerves with a nerve stimulator, the overall success rate was 97.9%, ranging from 89.7% in 1990 to 98.4% in 1998. There have been no failures, defined as the need for conversion to general anaesthesia, in the last 500 block...

The first brachial plexus block is said to have been performed by William Halsted in 1884 [32], soon after Roller [13] had demonstrated the local anaesthetic properties of cocaine. He injected the drug under direct vision, after exposing the plexus using infiltration anaesthesia. The first percutaneous blocks were performed independently in 1911 by Hirschel [11] and Kulenkampff [14], using the ...

BACKGROUND The cluster approach for supraclavicular brachial plexus block (SC-BPB) can be easily performed but may result in asymmetric local anesthetic (LA) spread. The authors hypothesized that the use of a cluster approach in each of the 2 planes would achieve better 3-dimensional LA distribution than the traditional single cluster approach. OBJECTIVES The purpose of the present study was ...

We performed an audiometric study in 20 patients who underwent surgery of the shoulder region under an interscalene brachial plexus block (IBPB). Bupivacaine 0.75% with adrenaline was given followed by a 24-hr continuous infusion of 0.25% bupivacaine. Three audiometric threshold measurements (0.25-18 kHz) were made: the first before IBPB, the second 2-6 h after surgery and the third on the firs...

UNLABELLED To compare the analgesic efficacy of local aesthetic with and without dexamethasone in supraclavicular brachial plexus block. METHODS Forty patients undergoing arm, forearm and hand surgeries were randomly selected. The forty patients were divided in two groups of 20 each. In-group one, a brachial plexus block was done with 40-50 ml of local anaesthetic with 1:200,000 adrenaline an...