This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a colleague Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Request Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Navas, A. M. Articles by Gutiérrez, T. V. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Navas, A. M. Articles by Gutiérrez, T. V.

---

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Combined Femoral–Sciatic Catheters for Postoperative Pain Treatment After Total Knee Replacement

Department of Anesthesiology; Valme Universitary Hospital; Sevilla, Spain; amartnavas{at}yahoo.es

To the Editor:

We have the following comments regarding the recent paper by Zaric et al. (1) describing postoperative analgesia after total knee replacement. First, one advantage of two catheters (femoral and sciatic) is that a bolus of rescue analgesia may be injected through only one catheter depending on the location of postoperative pain (anterior or posterior aspect of the knee). The authors comment that patients receive a bolus of different local anesthetic depending on the visual analog pain scale, but we do not know if local anesthetic is injected through femoral, sciatic or both catheters.

Second, because the concentration of local anesthetic administered through the sciatic catheter was lower than that through the femoral catheter we conclude that patients in the posterior nerve block group experienced more pain in the distribution of sciatic nerve than in the distribution of the femoral nerve. In our experience, the posterior aspect of the knee is the most frequently identified location of pain after total knee replacement (2).

REFERENCES

1. Zaric D, Boysen K, Christiansen Ch, Christiansen J, Stephensen S, Christensen B. A comparison of epidural analgesia with combined continuous femoral-sciatic nerve blocks after toal knee replacement. Anesth Analg 2006;102:1240–6.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
2. Martïnez Navas A, Echevarrïa Moreno M. Continuous versus single-dose sciatic nerve block to complement a femoral block after total knee replacement surgery: a randomized clinical trial. Rev Esp Anestesiol Reanim 2006;53:214–9.[Medline]

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a colleague Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Request Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Navas, A. M. Articles by Gutiérrez, T. V. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Navas, A. M. Articles by Gutiérrez, T. V.