The case, reported at the society’s 2010 annual meeting, attributed the patient’s five-minute blindness to the deep (ascending) cervical artery that can occupy part of the target area for cervical RF neurotomy. The DCA also connects with the occipital artery and sometimes with the vertebral artery.
The physicians found blood in the needle after injecting their patient with 0.5 ml of 0.25 percent Bupivicaine, and warn that “even minute amounts of local anesthetic into this vessel [DCA] can produce devastating neurological complications.”
Read the abstract on cervical radiofrequency neurotomy.
Read more on anesthesia:
– Study: Regional Anesthesia Trumps General Anesthesia in Arteriovenous Fistula Patients
– How Does Your Compensation Compare?: 15 Statistics for Anesthesiologists
