Comparison of clinical utilities between real-time ultrasound- and fluoroscopy-assisted thoracic epidural catheter placement: A randomized controlled study

We randomly assigned 132 patients to the allocated groups. The difference in the first pass success rate between the groups did not exceed the non-inferiority margin of 15% (ultrasound group: 66.7% vs.fluoroscopy group: 68.2%; difference -1.5%, 90% exact CI: -14.9 to 11.9). The difference in the final success rate also did not differ between the groups (98.5% vs. 100.0%; difference -1.5%, 90% exact CI: -4.0 to 1.0). The time to space marking (45.6 [34–62] vs. 59.0 [42–77] sec, p=0.004) and needling time (39.5 [28–78] vs. 112.5 [93–166] sec, p<0.001) were significantly shorter in the ultrasound group.