Regional anesthesia in children.

The future of regional anesthesia in children is to continue to use current techniques, but also to search for ways to make them easier to employ. The potential development of safe local anesthetic agents with much longer durations, will serve to facilitate improvements in the techniques and styles of practice. The advances in minimally invasive surgical techniques do not mean that regional techniques will not be necessary, but will result in an adaptation of techniques. Peripheral nerve blockade and local wound infiltration can still be used and in some instances, may be very appropriate.