• interventional pain management
• postoperative pain
• anatomy

To the Editor

We are thankful to Dr Nielsen and colleagues1 and to Dr Aksu and colleague2 for their words of appreciation about our new approach for Erector Spinae Plane (ESP) block.3

Aksu suggested2 that they published this approach earlier than us.

However, we believe these two papers were developed independently and simultaneously as can be easily verified by just reading the papers. Aksu4 submitted to the journal on 26 September 2018 and published online on 6 November 2018, while we submitted3 to journal on 9 October 2018 and published online on 11 January 2019.

We recognize that Aksu and colleagues described this technique for the first time in children,4 while we described it for the first time in adults.3

However, we have to recognize that psoas major and ESP muscles have been accidentally interchanged during the image creation process.

Although text description of the technique is correct, images are of paramount importance, especially while describing a new technique or a new approach to an already existing technique. For this reason, we apologize to the Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine readers, editor and colleagues for our unintentional error. We have provided a ratified image (figure 1) with the correct sonoanatomy.

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Figure 1

Correct sonoanatomy of the technique. ES, erector spinae muscles; P, psoas major, QL, quadratus lumborum. Asterisk indicates target of the block.