Superficial Cervical Plexus Nerve Block for Incision & Drainage of Fascial Space Infection - A Prospective Study

A superficial cervical plexus nerve block is used for the incision and drainage of fascial space infections.

The prospective study was conducted on twenty-six patients who presented with fascial space infections. The study protocol involved incision and drainage of the fascial space infection under the superficial cervical plexus block supplemented by an intraoral nerve block.

The age of patients varied from 17 to 58 years, with the submandibular space most commonly involved. The mean time to onset of anesthesia symptoms was 5.27 min. There was a considerable decrease in pain after giving the nerve block with no significant variation in oxygen saturation and no recorded complications in this study. The time of first rescue analgesia ranged from 120 to 180 min. The correlation coefficient between the time of onset of anesthesia and the time for first analgesia was 0.095, suggesting a statistically nonsignificant correlation between the two parameters.

This study achieved significant pain reduction and high patient compliance. This anesthetic technique is promising for the management of fascial space infection.