Paediatric neuraxial anaesthesia and analgesia

With the permission of the WFSA, I have been working on translating the PDF documents of the UPDATE in Anaesthesia (for paediatrics) into html so that they are much more easily read/referenced on hand held devices (e.g., iphone).

This page is under construction, converting the originally formatted pdf from the WFSA site with wiki embellishments.

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Originally from https://resources.wfsahq.org/uia/vol-37-paediatrics-special-edition/ | Update in Anaesthesia

Keri Borden Koszela* and Navil Sethna

*Correspondence email: Keri.koszela@childrens.harvard.edu

doi: 10.1029/WFSA-D-20-00011

Keri Koszela, MD Boston Children’s Hospital 300 Longwood Ave. Boston  MA 02115 USA

Navil Sethna, MD FAAP Boston Children’s Hospital 300 Longwood Ave. Boston  MA 02115 USA

Abstract

Neuraxial anesthetic techniques are generally safe and effective in children of all ages. Spinal anesthesia may reduce the risk of early post-operative apnea in neonates and former premature infants and is an alternative to general anesthesia in resource-limited settings. Epidural anesthesia may facilitate early tracheal extubation in neonates and is a useful adjunct to multimodal analgesia to spare opioids and enhance recovery in the post-operative period. A large prospective study of >40,000 neuraxial anesthetics demonstrated the safety of epidural catheter placement in children under general anesthesia. Serious complications from pediatric neuraxial anesthesia are rare as demonstrated in case series and the Pediatric Regional Anesthesia Network database.

Key words:
analgesia; epidural; anesthesia; spinal; infant; child