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Transient compartment syndrome of the forearm after attempted radial artery cannulation

J Qvist1, R A Peterfreund, G S Perlmutter

  • 1Department of Anesthesia, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston 02114, USA.

Radial artery cannulation for continuous intraoperative monitoring of arterial blood pressure is considered a safe procedure. One complication of arterial cannulation is hematoma formation at the time of insertion or removal of the catheter. Bleeding is usually self-limited or will stop with compression without significant sequelae, even in the anticoagulated patient. We describe a case of hematoma with a transient compartment syndrome of the forearm after attempts to cannulate the radial artery for intraoperative monitoring purposes.

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