Precise positioning of the epidural anesthesia needles by puncture force

Abstract

Epidural anesthesia is one of the regional anesthesias used for the abdominal surgery and the obstetric analgesia for labor. An anesthesiologist need to place the needle tip at the epidural space precisely, according to decrease of the puncture force when the needle tip enters in the epidural space. No study examined the relation between the tip shape and the force curve. In this paper, six needles were compared by a phantom study.