Unilateral Spinal Anesthesia Using a 26-gauge Quincke Spinal Needle

Abstract

Asymmetric distribution of spinal block toward the surgical side is advantageous for minimizing cardiovascular effects of spinal block. Most of the studies about unilateral anesthesia used pencilpoint needle. The tip of the common Quincke needle have long bevel that incorporate a terminal orifice and is more easy to differentiate bone from ligament than pencil point needle in clinical bases. Unlike pencil point injections, however, injection through a Quincke needle does not make streaming and directional flow in the direction of the needle hole, which minimizes the mixing of hyperbaric bupivacaine with the CSF and improves the unilateral distribution of spinal anesthesia. There have been no attempts that compared the adequacy or hemodynamic effects of unilateral spinal anesthesia with the conventional anesthesia using a Quincke needle. A few of the studies that used a Quincke needle investigated the optimal duration of the lateral decubitus position and the dose of local anesthetic solution to perform unilateral spinal anesthesia. This study was undertaken to evaluate whether the unilateral spinal anesthesia using a 26-gauge Quincke needle provides any advantages in terms of adequacy or hemodynamic stability than the conventional spinal anesthesia in orthopedic patients. Unilateral Spinal Anesthesia Using a 26-gauge Quincke Spinal Needle