Introduction:

Cervical epidural anesthesia has been successfully used for various types of surgical procedures involving upper limb surgery, thoracic wall surgery, carotid artery surgery and neck dissections, keeping the patient conscious, with less blood loss and a surgical field more bloodless, also presents lower failure rate, lower total dose of local anesthesia and maintenance of postoperative analgesia through a catheter.

Objective:

To describe anesthetic management and postoperative analgesia in a patient scheduled for hand surgery, using a cervical epidural technique.

Methods and results:

We present the case of a patient who underwent osteosynthesis of the fifth finger of the right hand, and whose anesthetic technique was cervical epidural with catheter, using 0.25 % bupivacaine plus lidocaine without epinephrine 2 %, continuing with postoperative epidural analgesia by catheter in which uses morphine 5 mg, bupivacaine 50 mg and 90 cc sodium chloride in an elastomer pump at 0.5 cc/h.

Conclusions:

Cervical epidural anesthesia is an effective and safe technique for upper limb surgery, allowing continuous postoperative analgesia.

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