Background and aims The transmuscular quadratus lumborum (TQL) block is considered an advanced block. Extensive knowledge of anatomy and ultrasound landmarks is needed. When performing the bilateral TQL block, the patient starts in a lateral decubitus position on one side for the first TQL block and must be repositioned on the other side afterwards. Because of the difficult anatomy and the patient positioning, the block performance time might be long. We wanted to examine the time consumption at our department when performing bilateral ultrasound-guided TQL blocks.

Methods During one week of April 2019, all bilateral TQL-blocks performed at our department were timed with a stopwatch. The timing began when the transducer was in contact with the patient for the first time and ended when the needle was ejected the second time. The anaesthesiologists performing the blocks were divided into two groups: trainees having performed <50 TQL blocks and experts who had performed >50 TQL blocks.

Results The median time spend on a bilateral TQL-block by our group of trainees was 07:17 minutes [06:00–09:15, range] and by the experienced anaesthesiologist 07:00 minutes [04:21–17:00, range].

Conclusions The median time spend performing bilateral TQL-blocks was less than 10 minutes by both trainees and experienced anaesthesiologists.