Lower extremity nerve blocks

The purpose of this review is to present the most important recent studies into the clinical use of peripheral nerve blocks for anesthesia and postoperative analgesia of the lower limb surgery.

There is increasing interest in lower extremity peripheral nerve blocks because of their potential advantages and concerns over interactions of centroneuraxis blocks and anticoagulants. Several authors have studied different approaches to the blockade of peripheral nerves with their advantages or disadvantages. Continuous peripheral nerve blocks have showed prolonged analgesia and great patient satisfaction with low side effects. Recent imaging techniques (e.g. ultrasound, magnetic resonance, tomography scans) have been developed to improve the performance of lower peripheral nerve blocks. Finally, complications of these techniques have been examined.

Introduction of new methods and techniques are increasing and improving the use of lower peripheral nerve blocks. These techniques are gaining interest after the important increase of the lower molecular weigh heparins.