[Negligence of the physician's duty to care during "therapeutic local anesthesia"].

Therapeutic local anaesthesia, although a seemingly simple procedure, requires informed consent by the patient as well as proper indication and careful execution. Four cases selected from a medico-legal experience illustrate some severe complications. Nausea, dyspnoea and respiratory arrest (anaphylactic shock) occurred in a 34-year-old woman shortly after injection of 0.5% Bupivacaine into the paravertebral musculature for the treatment of acute neck pain. She had to be hospitalized for 18 days, at times requiring mechanical ventilation. Three other patients (women aged 40, 43 and 52 years, respectively) developed a pneumothorax after supposedly intramuscular injection of a local anaesthetic. They were hospitalized for 7 to 12 days for treatment by drainage. Anatomical variations were excluded by ultrasound in the 40- and 43-year-old patients. These case reports demonstrate that doctors performing such procedures do not always possess the necessary anatomical knowledge, and the possible occurrence of complications is underestimated.