RT Book, Section
A1 Borgeat, Alain
A1 Levine, Matthew
A1 Latmore, Malikah
A1 Van Boxstael, Sam
A1 Blumenthal, Stephan
A2 Hadzic, Admir
SR Print(0)
ID 1141738993
T1 Interscalene Brachial Plexus Block
T2 Hadzic's Textbook of Regional Anesthesia and Acute Pain Management, 2e
YR 2017
FD 2017
PB McGraw-Hill Education
PP New York, NY
SN 9780071717595
LK accessanesthesiology.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1141738993
RD 2024/04/19
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.