Intravenous regional anaesthesia

The technique of intravenous regional anaesthesia (IVRA) has failed to gain general acceptance among anaesthetists, who are divided into those who never use it, preferring more specific local anaesthetic blocks, and those who would recommend it as the technique of choice for some procedures. Numerous large series have been published, attesting to its general safety, but intermittent accounts of serious side effects and more recent reports of fatalities have called the technique into question, so that a reassessment seems timely.