TY - CHAP M1 - Book, Section TI - Interscalene Brachial Plexus Block A1 - Borgeat, Alain A1 - Levine, Matthew A1 - Latmore, Malikah A1 - Van Boxstael, Sam A1 - Blumenthal, Stephan A2 - Hadzic, Admir PY - 2017 T2 - Hadzic's Textbook of Regional Anesthesia and Acute Pain Management, 2e AB - The first brachial plexus blocks were performed by William Stewart Halsted, in 1885, at the Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. In 1902, George Washington Crile described an “open approach” to expose the (axillary) plexus facilitating direct application of cocaine. The need for surgical exposure of the brachial plexus led to limited clinical utility of this technique. This changed in the early 1900s when percutaneous access to the brachial plexus was first described. In 1925, July Etienne1 reported the successful blockade of the brachial plexus by inserting a needle halfway between the lateral border of the sternocleidomastoid muscle and the anterior border of the trapezius muscle at the level of the cricothyroid membrane, making a single injection in the area around the scalene muscles. This approach was most likely the first clinically useful interscalene block technique. In 1970, Alon Winnie2 described the first consistently effective and technically suitable percutaneous approach to the brachial plexus block. The technique involved palpating the interscalene groove at the level of the cricoid cartilage and injecting local anesthetic between the anterior and middle scalene muscles. Winnie’s approach was modified over the years to include slight variations to the technique such as perineural catheter placement.3 However, the success of this approach and the widespread adoption of the interscalene brachial plexus block as the “unilateral spinal anesthesia for the upper extremity,” should be credited solely to Alon Winnie. SN - PB - McGraw-Hill Education CY - New York, NY Y2 - 2024/04/24 UR - accessanesthesiology.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1141738993 ER -