Infectious complications of epidural anaesthesia and analgesia.
Clinically overt infections of the epidural catheter skin entry site occur in approximately 5% of patients after a few days; deep catheter tract infections occur in approximately 5% of patients after more prolonged epidural analgesia. This indicates that potentially serious epidural infectious complications are ever-present risks of epidural anaesthesia and analgesia. This review focuses on risk factors and guidelines for routine epidural analgesia that may minimize the risks of serious infectious complications.
Breivik
H
H
Department of Anaesthesiology, the National Hospital (Rikshospitalet), University of Oslo, N-0027 Oslo, Norway. harald.breivik@rh.uio.no