Is routine intravenous access commonly established before interventional pain procedures? Results of a spine...

Establishing routine intravenous (IV) access prior to interventional pain procedures performed without sedation is controversial. Anecdotally, practices very in terms of their use of routine IV access.

To determine the frequency with which routine IV access is obtained for various common interventional pain procedures among interventional pain providers.

An anonymous survey was distributed to physician members of the Spine Intervention Society (SIS) on 08/13/2020, and remained open until 10/13/2020. Respondents provided information regarding demographics and current practice patterns.

141 SIS members completed the survey. A bimodal distribution was noted for most procedures, with most providers obtaining routine IV access either 0% of the time or 81-100% of the time. Routine IV access was used more frequently when performing cervical spine procedures, splanchnic or hypogastric plexus blocks, lumbar sympathetic blocks, and spinal cord stimulator trials. Excluding cases where IV's were used for sedation, the only procedures which providers obtained routine IV access more often than not were spinal cord stimulator trials, splanchnic/celiac plexus blocks, and hypogastric plexus blocks. Over half (52.5%) of respondents reported using an IV for an emergent situation in their career. While most providers would not modify their IV usage based on practice location, those that would were significantly more likely to decrease IV use if working in clinic-based procedures suites (n ​= ​25) compared to hospital-based surgical centers (n ​= ​2) or ambulatory surgical centers (n ​= ​9, p ​< ​0.001).

There remains wide variation among practitioners in establishing routine intravenous access prior to interventional procedures. Most providers surveyed do not routinely establish IV access for the majority of interventional pain procedures. Routine IV access is more commonly obtained for cervical spine procedures than other spinal regions. Overall, complications precipitating the need for IV use are rare in interventional spine but likely to happen over the course of a career.