Ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia for orthopedic surgery in pediatric patients

Introduction of the use of ultrasound (US) has led to very important developments in pediatric regional anesthesia and made applications, which are hard or even impossible to perform, applicable by the guidance of US. In this study, we aimed to discuss US-guided peripheral nerve and plexus blocks that we made for intraoperative anesthesia, analgesia or postoperative analgesia in 81 pediatric patients ranging from ages 1 to 16 who were operated in the last year. For this study, anesthesia forms, evaluation forms of regional anesthesia, observation forms for nurses, and hospital epicrises of patients were used. Demographic data (age, sex, weigh, height), ASA scores, anesthetic properties, postoperative duration of analgesia and motor block and complications of patients were recorded. Estimated mean duration of analgesia for upper and lower extremities were 5.8 +/- 1.6 h, and 8.7 +/- 2.5 h, respectively, the duration of motor block for upper and lower extremities were 3.6 +/- 0.7 h, 5.3 +/- 1.8 h, respectively. Failed or insufficient block count was three. In orthopedic surgery applied pediatric patients US-guided regional blocks can be applied effectively and safely and it has high achievement and minimal complication rates.