Epidural anesthesia: effective analgesia in aortoiliofemoral arteriography.

The efficacy of epidural anesthesia for control of pain experienced by patients undergoing peripheral arteriography was studied in 77 patients. In 70 patients, arteriographic studies were completely painless. Two patients experienced severe pain, while five felt different degrees of limited pain and/or burning sensation. Arteriograms in the 77 patients were excellent because the analgesia allowed injection of large volumes of contrast, the patients did not move during the injection because of motor block, and finally the sympathetic block probably resulted in peripheral vasodilatation. We believe that epidural anesthesia represents the method of choice in the control of pain during arteriographic examinations of the lower extremities.