Comparison of Ultrasound-Guided Supraclavicular and Costoclavicular Brachial Plexus Blocks in Pediatric Patients Undergoing Unilateral Upper Exremity Surgery: A Randomized Controlled Double-Blinded Study

Peripheral nerve blocks; It is widely used in daily practice for anesthesia or as a part of multimodal analgesia in most surgical procedures. In upper extremity surgeries, the brachial plexus block can be performed with different techniques at various levels depending on the proximal and distal level of the surgery. In this study, the aim is to compare postoperative analgesic effects of these two ultrasound-guided techniques in pediatric patients.

As an alternative to the infraclavicular brachial plexus block, which has been used for many years and which we routinely perform to every pediatric patient under general anesthesia; Costoclavicular block is recommended due to its advantages such as short application time, single injection and sufficient ultrasound imaging, and its use is becoming widespread. There are studies comparing these two methods. However, we aim to compare the costoclavicular technique with the supraclavicular technique, which is more common for many years and is performed 2-3 cm proximal to the costoclavicular block area. Thus demonstrate the safety of upper extremity blocks, which is an important part of multimodal analgesia, and to determine the most ideal technique in the pediatric patient group who will undergo upper extremity surgery.

During the block application, the US imaging time, the difficulty level of needle imaging, the number of maneuvers required to reach the target image, whether additional maneuvers are required according to the local anesthetic distribution, the success of the block and the duration of the surgery, the total application time of the block and the duration of general anesthesia will be recorded. Mean arterial pressure and heart rate will be recorded at 30-minute intervals during the surgery. Standardized for pediatric patients The FLACC and Wong-Baker pain scores will be followed first 24 hours after surgery. The patient will be examined for pain, motor and sensation, and analgesic doses will be recorded if used. Time to first pain identification, duration of sleep, patient and surgeon satisfaction will be recorded.

The rarely onset of hemidiaphragmatic paralysis during supraclavicular block reduces its use. Costoclavicular block could be a safe and effective alternative. One of our seconder objectives is to assess the incidence of hemidiaphragmatic paralysis following ultrasound-guided supraclavicular block and compare it to that of costoclavicular block. For this purpose diaphragmatic excursion is visualized by M-mode ultrasonography 30 minutes after extubation. In B-mode, the diaphragm thickness measurement at the end of expiratory and inspiratory end is recorded and the diaphragm thickness fraction is calculated. Absence of diaphragmatic excursion during a sniff test or sighing defined the hemidiaphragmatic paralysis.