Papers of the Week

The fundamental design of perineural catheters has changed little since they were first introduced WHAT THIS ARTICLE TELLS US THAT IS NEW: A novel catheter attached to the back of a suture-shaped needle can be inserted under ultrasound guidance to provide popliteal-sciatic nerve blockadeIn the first two days after foot and ankle surgery, analgesia provided using the suture-type catheters was found to be noninferior to that provided by conventional through-the-needle catheters BACKGROUND:: The basic perineural catheter design has changed minimally since inception, with the catheter introduced through or over a straight needle. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently cleared a novel perineural catheter design comprising a catheter attached to the back of a suture-shaped needle that is inserted, advanced along the arc of its curvature pulling the catheter past the target nerve, and then exited through the skin in a second location. The authors hypothesized that analgesia would be noninferior using the new versus traditional catheter design in the first two days after painful foot/ankle surgery with a primary outcome of average pain measured with the Numeric Rating Scale.