This book offers a comprehensive but straightforward, practical handbook on ultrasound (US)-guided nerve blocks. It presents the normal US anatomy of peripheral nerves, clinical aspects of nerve entrapment and different procedures / techniques for each block. Axial or peripheral chronic radicular pain can be particularly severe and debilitating for the patient. The aim of treatment is to provide medium-/ long-term pain relief, and consequently to restore function. The therapeutic nerve block, performed with a perineural injection of anaesthetic, steroid or painkiller, is generally used once conservative treatments have proven unsuccessful and is aimed to avoid surgical options.

 Ultrasound guidance, offering the direct and real-time visualization of the needle and adjacent relevant anatomic structures, significantly increases the accuracy and safety of nerve blocks reducing the risk of intraneural or intravascular injection and the potential damage to the surrounding structures, but also enhances the efficacy of the block itself, reducing  its onset and drug doses.

 This practical volume addresses the needs of physicians dealing with pain management, e.g. anaesthesiologists, radiologists, orthopaedists and physiatrists, with various levels of experience, ranging from physicians in training to those who already perform peripheral nerve blocks with traditional techniques and who want to familiarize with US guided procedures.

FUNDAMENTALS.- Basic principles.- Doppler and Sonoelastographic Imaging.- Normal anatomy NORMAL US ANATOMY AND SCANNING TECHNIQUE

Basic principles and US scanning technique
Brachial plexus
Upper limb peripheral nerves
Lower limb peripheral nerves
US PATHOLOGIC FINDINGS
Compressive syndrome
Traumatic injuries
Tumors and tumor-like conditions
NERVE ENTRAPMENT SYNDROME
Physiopathologic findings
Clinical and sonographic considerations.-  Entrapment syndromes: the upper limb
Entrapment syndromes: the lower limb
USGUIDED NERVE BLOCKS: PROCEDURE TECHNIQUE
General considerations.- Indications and contraindications.- Setting and patient preparation.- Drugs and materials requirements.- US guidance and Navigation systems.- Interscalene block.-  Supraclavicular block
Infraclavicular block
Axillary block
Median nerve block
Ulnar nerve block
Radial nerve block
Thoracic paravertebral block.- Transversus abdominis plane (TAP) block.- Rectus sheat block
Lumbar plexus block.- Iliohypogastric and ilioinguinal nerve block. - Lateral femoral-cutaneous nerve block
Femoral nerve block.- Saphenous nerve block
Sciatic nerve block
Popliteus nerve block
Tibial nerve block. - Ankle block.