[Peripheral anesthesia techniques in surgery of the arm].
BACKGROUND
This report deals with the techniques of peripheral anaesthesia used by the Authors for surgical treatment of lesions of the upper extremity.


METHODS
Plexus brachial block anaesthesia using a supraclavicular approach was performed for arm, forearm and hand surgery, axillary block anaesthesia for forearm and hand surgery, while block anaesthesia was employed for wrist and hand injuries. Local anaesthetics as Bupivacaine 0.5% and Mepivacaine 2% without Epinephrine were used.


RESULTS
In 95% of the cases the results were satisfactory, in 5% (not cooperating and young patients, long operations, incomplete block anaesthesia) it was necessary to perform a general anaesthesia.


CONCLUSIONS
Surgeons and patients well accepted these techniques of anaesthesia because of: less bleeding during the operation, easy surgical performance, high percentage of success in reimplantations, absence of side effects due to narcosis, better recovery of psycho-physical conditions and long lasting postoperative analgesia.
Martinotti
R
R
Servizio di Anestesia e Rianimazione, Ospedale Civile, Voghera.
Berlanda
P
P
Zanlungo
M
M
Soldini
A
A
D001132:Arm / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D009407:Nerve Block / Q000379:methods*