Background and Aims In Serbia, the use of regional anesthesia and analgesia (RA) techniques in orthopedic surgery cases has been low, despite sporadic efforts to increase the use. Thanks to the Kybele international teaching visit held in April 2017, members of the Department of Anesthesia at Leskovac General Hospital, Serbia (LGH) started doing ultrasound-guided RA (UGRA) techniques.

Methods From the LGH anesthesia database for period January 2016 to December 2020 data on all upper and lower extremity (LE) surgeries were obtained.

Results During the study period, there was an increase in neuraxial anesthesia (NA) use for LE surgery (2016 – 60%, 2020 – 78%). There was also a small increase in both adductor canal (AC) and IPACK block use for postoperative pain management¹, and sporadic use of quadratus lumborum (QL) and erector spinae plane (ESP) block following hip and femur surgery² (table 1). We had a significant increase in number of cases done under monitored anesthesia care and peripheral nerve block (supraclavicular brachial plexus block for arm surgery, and combination of popliteal and AC block for lower leg surgery) (table 1). In 2020, with decrease in trauma cases, the absolute number of UGRA blocks decreased, however the percentage of patients that received the block increased (table 1, figure 1).

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Abstract 169 Figure 1

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Abstract 169 Figure 2

Conclusions It remains to be seen if current percentage of patients who have UGRA techniques will be maintained when the number of trauma cases returns to pre-COVID level.