BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Sympathetic Maintenance Pain Syndrome, Obliterating Thromboangiitis, Progressive Systemic Scleroderma (auto-immune disease) and postoperative analgesia are good responders to prolonged local anesthetics. These reports aimed at spreading the use of short catheters (venous catheters) or epidural catheter segments associated to peripheral nerve stimulator in the above mentioned situations and when adequate material (ContplexÒ and similar equipment) are not available. CASE REPORTS: Cases of Complex Regional Pain 1 and 2, leg ulcer by obliterating thromboangiitis in preparation to skin graft, and progressive systemic scleroderma with distal foot microcirculatory involvement are reported in which venous catheters were inserted close to the peripheral nerves of the respective territories aiming at continuously controlling pain through local anesthetic injections. CONCLUSIONS: Based on regional anesthesia best practices and on the results obtained, all cases reported have shown that investigated catheters may replace those specially designed for the same purposes.
ANESTHETIC TECHNIQUES, Regional; PAIN
