Ultrasound-guided perineural injection of the saphenous nerve in goat cadavers

Surgery of the goat stifle joint requires good perioperative analgesia, ideally without affecting motor function in the postoperative period.  The objective of this study was to describe an ultrasound-guided technique for saphenous nerve block in goats. Eleven fresh female goat cadavers from two different age groups were used: seven of them were four years old with a mean ± SD body weight of 65.9 ± 7.3 kg. Four animals were six months old and their mean ± SD body weight was 20.1 ± 3.1 kg. The cadavers were positioned in lateral recumbency with the limb to be blocked lowermost. A high-frequency linear transducer (6-12 MHz) was used to localise the interfascial plane between the sartorius and the vastus medialis muscles and to identify the saphenous nerve on the medial aspect of the thigh, caudal to the femur, at the level of the femoral triangle. In 22 pelvic limbs 0.1 mL/kg of methylene blue was injected around the saphenous nerve under ultrasound guidance, followed by gross anatomical dissection. The length of circumferentially stained nerve was measured, and the success rate of achieving at least 1 cm of staining is presented with a 95% confidence interval (CI).

Although not all saphenous nerves were sonographically identified, their boundaries were defined as cranial to the femoral artery, lateral to the sartorius muscle, and medial to the vastus medialis and rectus femoris muscles, within the perivascular fat. During anatomical dissection, the overall dye solution distribution was graded as complete in 17/22 limbs indicating a 77.3% success rate [95% CI (0.598, 0.948)], partial in 3/22 limbs and failed in 2/22 limbs.

The success rate of this study indicates the feasibility of employing the ultrasound-guided technique to perform saphenous nerve block in goats. However, further in-vivo studies are recommended to assess the block's clinical efficacy before implementation on clinical patients.