Ultrasound-Guided Peripheral Nerve Blocks

This book offers a comprehensive yet straightforward, practical handbook on using ultrasound (US)-guided nerve blocks. It presents the normal US anatomy of peripheral nerves, clinical aspects of nerve entrapment and different procedures and techniques for each block. Axial or peripheral chronic radicular pain can be particularly severe and debilitating for the patient. The aim of the treatment is to provide medium- / long-term pain relief, and consequently to restore function. The therapeutic nerve block, performed with a perineural injection of anaesthetic, steroid or painkiller, is generally used once conservative treatments have proven unsuccessful and is aimed to avoid surgical options. Ultrasound guidance, which offers the direct and real-time visualisation of the needle and adjacent relevant anatomic structures, significantly increases the accuracy and safety of nerve blocks. Further, it offers several advantages over simple palpation guidance: it not only reduces the risk of intraneural or intravascular injection and resultant potential damage to the surrounding structures, but also enhances the efficacy of the block itself, reducing latency and drug dosage. This practical volume addresses the needs of physicians from the pain management area, e.g. anaesthesiologists, radiologists, orthopaedists and physiatrists, with various levels of experience, ranging from physicians in training to those who already perform the procedure with traditional techniques and who wish to familiarise themselves with the intervention under US guidance.