You don’t have to imagine it-image it!
Alan Jay Schwartz, MD, MSEd and Lynne G Maxwell, MD
80 years ago today, June 6, 1944, D day, the day of days, was a pivotal moment in world history. The American, British, Canadian, Free French, and Polish armies launched the Normandy invasion that was the beginning of the end of Nazi Germany. Few of the 2 million soldiers involved remain alive today, but take a moment to remember the sacrifices of all of those who lived and perished for our freedom. Myron Yaster MD
Images in Anesthesiology
Eizaga Rebollar R, Carnota Martín AI, Borreiros Rodríguez E, Rojo Díez R. Tethered Spinal Cord Syndrome Discovered during Ultrasound-guided Caudal Block. Anesthesiology. 2024 Jun 1;140(6):1203-1204. doi: 10.1097/ALN.0000000000004899. PMID: 38498665.
Anesthesiologists are therapeutic as we provide care during procedures when others cure, palliate or diagnose. Anesthesiologists are rarely diagnosticians. As we provide anesthesia patient care we imagine, in our mind’s eye, the patient’s anatomic and physiologic status.
Ultrasound (US) has become the game changer when it comes to “imagining” anesthesia patient care. Rebollar et al.1 illustrate the achievement of their goal to provide effective and safe anesthesia care by employing ultrasound imaging to facilitate the establishment of a continuous caudal block (see June 3 PAAD: Look at the that caudal go!). The authors point out that while the presence of a tethered spinal cord should be suspected in pediatric patients with urogenital anomalies, US imaging can confirm its existence.2 Anesthesiologists using US don’t have to imagine they are able to diagnose this anatomic abnormality, they can image it and diagnose it as they visualize it as they perform the caudal block.
References
1. Eizaga Rebollar R, Carnota Martín AI, Borreiros Rodríguez E, Rojo Díez R. Tethered Spinal Cord Syndrome Discovered during Ultrasound-guided Caudal Block. Anesthesiology 2024;140(6):1203-1204. (In eng). DOI: 10.1097/aln.0000000000004899.
2. Koo BN, Hong JY, Song HT, Kim JM, Kil HK. Ultrasonography reveals a high prevalence of lower spinal dysraphism in children with urogenital anomalies. Acta anaesthesiologica Scandinavica 2012;56(5):624-8. (In eng). DOI: 10.1111/j.1399-6576.2011.02612.x.