title: Muscle relaxant or prone position, which one unfastened the entrapped epidural catheter?
abstract: Some nonsurgical steps have been introduced to remove an entrapped catheter. But occasionally, the majority of them fail, and we are forced to extract the catheter through an invasive procedure. This article depicts our team's experience on the issue. When we found that the inserted epidural catheter was entrapped, we performed all recommended noninvasive maneuvers to release the catheter, but no progress was achieved. Therefore, after obtaining informed consent, we induced anesthesia and changed her to a prone position to explore her back. The intact catheter was removed easily in this stage. The authors believe, in this process, it would have been better if they had tried pulling the catheter in a prone position as a preliminary step. Furthermore, pulling the catheter in a prone position after injecting a muscle relaxant appeared to be more effective and saved the patient from the scheduled surgery.
authors.affiliation: Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Imam Khomeini Hospital Complex, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Amir Poya
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Zanjani
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, Imam Khomeini Hospital Complex, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Babak
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Mirzashahi
authors.affiliation: Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Imam Khomeini Hospital Complex, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Emami
authors.affiliation: Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Imam Khomeini Hospital Complex, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Motahareh
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hassani
keywords: Entrapment; entrapped catheter; epidural anesthesia; neuraxial anesthesia; remove catheter