Pub Date : 2026-01-13DOI: 10.1136/rapm-2025-107534
Ryan S D'Souza, Hipolito Labandeyra
{"title":"Does anesthetic type matter for C-sections? Neuraxial versus general anesthesia impact on children's long-term development.","authors":"Ryan S D'Souza, Hipolito Labandeyra","doi":"10.1136/rapm-2025-107534","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/rapm-2025-107534","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54503,"journal":{"name":"Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145985967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-13DOI: 10.1136/rapm-2025-107533
Anupam Sinha, Ted Conliffe
{"title":"Letter to the editor: risk of dementia following gabapentin prescription in patients with chronic low back pain.","authors":"Anupam Sinha, Ted Conliffe","doi":"10.1136/rapm-2025-107533","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/rapm-2025-107533","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54503,"journal":{"name":"Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145985990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-13DOI: 10.1136/rapm-2025-107563
Ryan S D'Souza, Hipolito Labandeyra, Chandan Saini, Nejc Umek
{"title":"Only part of the story? Mechanistic insights into dye-based spread models.","authors":"Ryan S D'Souza, Hipolito Labandeyra, Chandan Saini, Nejc Umek","doi":"10.1136/rapm-2025-107563","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/rapm-2025-107563","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54503,"journal":{"name":"Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145985976","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-09DOI: 10.1136/rapm-2025-107526
André Pontes-Silva
{"title":"Are we relaxing muscles or lowering standards? Interpreting pharmacological effects in fibromyalgia.","authors":"André Pontes-Silva","doi":"10.1136/rapm-2025-107526","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/rapm-2025-107526","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54503,"journal":{"name":"Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145946553","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-08DOI: 10.1136/rapm-2025-106718
Yasmine Hoydonckx, Alexander Feoktistov, Farnaz Amoozegar, Christopher C Anderson, Meredith Barad, Emeralda Burke, Prin Chitsantikul, Tina L Doshi, Marina Englesakis, Akash Goel, Himanshu Gupta, Narayan Kissoon, Aaron Kirschner, Lynn Kohan, Clinton G Lauritsen, Franziska Miller, Danny Monsour, Antoun Nader, Oyindamola Ogunlaja, Nathaniel Schuster, Eric S Schwenk, Stephen D Silberstein, Dmitri Souza, Hsiangkuo Yuan, Samer Narouze
Introduction: Patients hospitalized for headache treatment pose unique challenges to the healthcare system. Currently, there is a lack of evidence-based guidance on management. This practice advisory aims to fill this critical gap by systematically reviewing the existing literature and providing comprehensive, evidence-based recommendations for managing headache patients during hospitalization.
Methods: In February 2023, the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine approved this practice advisory proposal. The steering committee selected committee members based on clinical and research expertise in the field of headache medicine. Nine questions were formulated by the committee, and each question was assigned to a group composed of 3-4 members. A systematic literature search for each question was performed in Medline, Embase, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and Web of Science on June 21, 2023. The results from each search were imported into separate Covidence projects for screening, data extraction, and risk of bias assessment. Additionally, relevant systematic reviews (SR) were screened. Each group submitted a structured narrative review along with statements and recommendations based on the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) format for grading of evidence. While the USPSTF framework was used, including the language in the recommendations, the formal USPSTF methodology, including the SR with meta-analysis and summary tables with forest plots, was not followed because of low overall evidence quality. The interim draft was shared electronically with each collaborator, who was requested to vote anonymously using two rounds of the modified Delphi approach. A consensus recommendation required >75% agreement.
Results: The panel generated 12 statements and 17 recommendations, along with their strength and certainty of evidence. Following two rounds of Delphi voting, a high consensus was achieved for all statements and recommendations. Most statements received a low-to-moderate level of certainty, and all but one recommendation received grade B or C, which was consistent with the lack of randomized controlled trials supporting most of the drugs in this document.
Conclusions: This evidence-based practice advisory provides a foundational step toward standardizing inpatient headache care and highlights existing gaps in the literature that should be addressed through rigorous prospective randomized studies.
导言:住院治疗头痛的患者对医疗保健系统提出了独特的挑战。目前,缺乏基于证据的管理指导。本实践咨询旨在通过系统地回顾现有文献并为住院期间头痛患者的管理提供全面的、基于证据的建议来填补这一关键空白。方法:2023年2月,美国区域麻醉与疼痛医学学会批准了这一实践建议。指导委员会根据头痛医学领域的临床和研究专业知识选择委员会成员。委员会制定了9个问题,每个问题分配给3-4人组成的小组。于2023年6月21日在Medline、Embase、Cochrane Database of systematic Reviews和Web of Science中对每个问题进行了系统的文献检索。每个搜索的结果都被导入到单独的covid - ence项目中,用于筛查、数据提取和偏倚风险评估。此外,筛选相关的系统评价(SR)。每个小组都提交了一份结构化的叙述性审查,以及基于美国预防服务工作组(USPSTF)证据分级格式的陈述和建议。虽然使用了USPSTF框架,包括建议中的语言,但由于总体证据质量较低,没有遵循正式的USPSTF方法,包括带有荟萃分析的SR和带有森林样地的总结表。临时草案以电子方式分享给每个合作者,他们被要求使用两轮修改后的德尔菲方法进行匿名投票。达成共识的建议需要75%的同意。结果:该小组提出了12项声明和17项建议,以及它们的证据强度和确定性。经过两轮德尔菲投票,所有发言和建议都取得了高度一致。大多数陈述的确定性为低至中等水平,除一项建议外,其余建议均为B级或C级,这与缺乏支持本文中大多数药物的随机对照试验相一致。结论:这一循证实践建议为标准化住院患者头痛护理提供了基础步骤,并强调了文献中存在的空白,应该通过严格的前瞻性随机研究来解决。
{"title":"Practice advisory for intravenous management of headache disorders in hospitalized patients: a review of the evidence and consensus recommendations.","authors":"Yasmine Hoydonckx, Alexander Feoktistov, Farnaz Amoozegar, Christopher C Anderson, Meredith Barad, Emeralda Burke, Prin Chitsantikul, Tina L Doshi, Marina Englesakis, Akash Goel, Himanshu Gupta, Narayan Kissoon, Aaron Kirschner, Lynn Kohan, Clinton G Lauritsen, Franziska Miller, Danny Monsour, Antoun Nader, Oyindamola Ogunlaja, Nathaniel Schuster, Eric S Schwenk, Stephen D Silberstein, Dmitri Souza, Hsiangkuo Yuan, Samer Narouze","doi":"10.1136/rapm-2025-106718","DOIUrl":"10.1136/rapm-2025-106718","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>Patients hospitalized for headache treatment pose unique challenges to the healthcare system. Currently, there is a lack of evidence-based guidance on management. This practice advisory aims to fill this critical gap by systematically reviewing the existing literature and providing comprehensive, evidence-based recommendations for managing headache patients during hospitalization.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>In February 2023, the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine approved this practice advisory proposal. The steering committee selected committee members based on clinical and research expertise in the field of headache medicine. Nine questions were formulated by the committee, and each question was assigned to a group composed of 3-4 members. A systematic literature search for each question was performed in Medline, Embase, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and Web of Science on June 21, 2023. The results from each search were imported into separate Covidence projects for screening, data extraction, and risk of bias assessment. Additionally, relevant systematic reviews (SR) were screened. Each group submitted a structured narrative review along with statements and recommendations based on the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) format for grading of evidence. While the USPSTF framework was used, including the language in the recommendations, the formal USPSTF methodology, including the SR with meta-analysis and summary tables with forest plots, was not followed because of low overall evidence quality. The interim draft was shared electronically with each collaborator, who was requested to vote anonymously using two rounds of the modified Delphi approach. A consensus recommendation required >75% agreement.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The panel generated 12 statements and 17 recommendations, along with their strength and certainty of evidence. Following two rounds of Delphi voting, a high consensus was achieved for all statements and recommendations. Most statements received a low-to-moderate level of certainty, and all but one recommendation received grade B or C, which was consistent with the lack of randomized controlled trials supporting most of the drugs in this document.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This evidence-based practice advisory provides a foundational step toward standardizing inpatient headache care and highlights existing gaps in the literature that should be addressed through rigorous prospective randomized studies.</p>","PeriodicalId":54503,"journal":{"name":"Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144555866","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-08DOI: 10.1136/rapm-2025-106699
Fredrik Amell, Robbie Sikora, Jesse R Beaudry, Peter Lang, Jose Mercado, Sarah Johnston, Shane Greene, Carson Wenz, Marshall Ward, Pablo Martinez Camblor, Brian D Sites, Milan Radovanovic, Charles Brackett, Sage Gale, Adam Ackerman
{"title":"Better opioid responsibility: implementing novel guidance as an opioid standard of care in academic and rural settings.","authors":"Fredrik Amell, Robbie Sikora, Jesse R Beaudry, Peter Lang, Jose Mercado, Sarah Johnston, Shane Greene, Carson Wenz, Marshall Ward, Pablo Martinez Camblor, Brian D Sites, Milan Radovanovic, Charles Brackett, Sage Gale, Adam Ackerman","doi":"10.1136/rapm-2025-106699","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/rapm-2025-106699","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54503,"journal":{"name":"Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145936266","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-08DOI: 10.1136/rapm-2025-107382
Nathaniel M Schuster, Charles E Argoff, Meredith J Barad, Tigran Kesayan, Narayan R Kissoon, Samer Narouze, Xiang Qian, Marcela Romero-Reyes, Hsiangkuo Yuan
Facial pain disorders, most notoriously trigeminal neuralgia, cause substantial suffering, functional impairment, disability, and impaired quality of life. However, most pain medicine practitioners have had only limited education on the evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of facial pain. Furthermore, this limited education often contains commonly held myths about facial pain diagnosis. These myths can result in misdiagnoses that lead to ineffective medications, interventions, or surgeries and prolonged pain. Therefore, the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine's Headache and Facial Pain Special Interest Group convened a multidisciplinary group of neurologists, anesthesiologists, and dentists to identify and dispel pervasive myths in facial pain diagnosis.
{"title":"Debunking myths in facial pain diagnosis for the pain practitioner.","authors":"Nathaniel M Schuster, Charles E Argoff, Meredith J Barad, Tigran Kesayan, Narayan R Kissoon, Samer Narouze, Xiang Qian, Marcela Romero-Reyes, Hsiangkuo Yuan","doi":"10.1136/rapm-2025-107382","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/rapm-2025-107382","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Facial pain disorders, most notoriously trigeminal neuralgia, cause substantial suffering, functional impairment, disability, and impaired quality of life. However, most pain medicine practitioners have had only limited education on the evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of facial pain. Furthermore, this limited education often contains commonly held myths about facial pain diagnosis. These myths can result in misdiagnoses that lead to ineffective medications, interventions, or surgeries and prolonged pain. Therefore, the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine's Headache and Facial Pain Special Interest Group convened a multidisciplinary group of neurologists, anesthesiologists, and dentists to identify and dispel pervasive myths in facial pain diagnosis.</p>","PeriodicalId":54503,"journal":{"name":"Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145936290","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-07DOI: 10.1136/rapm-2025-107540
Kristof Nijs, Bram Keunen, Hassanin Jalil, Marc Van de Velde, Björn Stessel
{"title":"What constitutes WALANT in modern hand surgery?","authors":"Kristof Nijs, Bram Keunen, Hassanin Jalil, Marc Van de Velde, Björn Stessel","doi":"10.1136/rapm-2025-107540","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/rapm-2025-107540","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":54503,"journal":{"name":"Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145919133","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-07DOI: 10.1136/rapm-2025-107469
Simon Istenič, Luka Pušnik, Chiedozie Kenneth Ugwoke, Tatjana Stopar Pintarič, Nejc Umek
Background: The mechanism by which local anesthetics spread and produce analgesia in interfascial plane blocks remains unclear. Clinical efficacy often exceeds the visible spread of injectate on imaging. This cadaveric study quantified the distribution of bupivacaine within skeletal muscle and across fascial barriers to explore diffusion as a potential contributor to interfascial plane block dynamics.
Methods: Fresh and frozen-thawed human soleus muscles were injected with a mixture of bupivacaine and methylene blue, and samples were collected along and perpendicular to fiber orientation. Fresh lower limbs were used to assess transfascial transfer across sequential crural fasciae after injection with bupivacaine, iodinated contrast, and methylene blue. The limbs were imaged with CT and samples were collected from crural compartments separated by fascial layers. Finally, simulated posteromedial quadratus lumborum block was performed in fresh cadavers, with samples harvested from the quadratus lumborum, psoas major, and diaphragm. Bupivacaine concentrations were quantified using high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry.
Results: In fresh muscle, bupivacaine exhibited an anisotropic pattern, with concentration gradients decreasing more slowly along muscle fiber orientation than in transverse direction (p=0.0008). This directional difference disappeared in frozen-thawed tissue. Across fascial barriers, bupivacaine decreased exponentially with the distance from injection site, compatible with diffusion-driven transport, whereas methylene blue and iodinated contrast were not detected beyond the injected compartments. After simulated quadratus lumborum block, bupivacaine was detected in the psoas major (0.7-487.6 µg/g), quadratus lumborum (0.2-266.1 µg/g), and diaphragm (9.0-27.3 µg/g) despite no evident methylene blue spread.
Conclusions: Low-volume injectate of bupivacaine spread anisotropically within fresh muscle and permeated fascial barriers in ways not demonstrated by methylene blue or iodinated contrast. The exponential decrease of concentrations provides evidence that diffusion contributes to local anesthetic distribution and may help explain, at least in part, the broad and occasionally disproportionate sensory coverage observed clinically with interfascial plane blocks.
{"title":"Mechanistic insights into bupivacaine spread through anisotropic tissue planes and fascial barriers: experimental evidence for interfascial block dynamics.","authors":"Simon Istenič, Luka Pušnik, Chiedozie Kenneth Ugwoke, Tatjana Stopar Pintarič, Nejc Umek","doi":"10.1136/rapm-2025-107469","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1136/rapm-2025-107469","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>The mechanism by which local anesthetics spread and produce analgesia in interfascial plane blocks remains unclear. Clinical efficacy often exceeds the visible spread of injectate on imaging. This cadaveric study quantified the distribution of bupivacaine within skeletal muscle and across fascial barriers to explore diffusion as a potential contributor to interfascial plane block dynamics.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Fresh and frozen-thawed human soleus muscles were injected with a mixture of bupivacaine and methylene blue, and samples were collected along and perpendicular to fiber orientation. Fresh lower limbs were used to assess transfascial transfer across sequential crural fasciae after injection with bupivacaine, iodinated contrast, and methylene blue. The limbs were imaged with CT and samples were collected from crural compartments separated by fascial layers. Finally, simulated posteromedial quadratus lumborum block was performed in fresh cadavers, with samples harvested from the quadratus lumborum, psoas major, and diaphragm. Bupivacaine concentrations were quantified using high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>In fresh muscle, bupivacaine exhibited an anisotropic pattern, with concentration gradients decreasing more slowly along muscle fiber orientation than in transverse direction (p=0.0008). This directional difference disappeared in frozen-thawed tissue. Across fascial barriers, bupivacaine decreased exponentially with the distance from injection site, compatible with diffusion-driven transport, whereas methylene blue and iodinated contrast were not detected beyond the injected compartments. After simulated quadratus lumborum block, bupivacaine was detected in the psoas major (0.7-487.6 µg/g), quadratus lumborum (0.2-266.1 µg/g), and diaphragm (9.0-27.3 µg/g) despite no evident methylene blue spread.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Low-volume injectate of bupivacaine spread anisotropically within fresh muscle and permeated fascial barriers in ways not demonstrated by methylene blue or iodinated contrast. The exponential decrease of concentrations provides evidence that diffusion contributes to local anesthetic distribution and may help explain, at least in part, the broad and occasionally disproportionate sensory coverage observed clinically with interfascial plane blocks.</p>","PeriodicalId":54503,"journal":{"name":"Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2026-01-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145919049","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}