Applications

1183 – Ultrasound imaging in the practice of anaesthesia

Find out about the service or technology in this application and the medical condition it addresses. You can also view the application documents, the deadlines for providing consultation input and the outcome of the application when the MSAC process is complete.

  • Status Complete
  • Type New application
  • Pre-PASC consultation -
  • Pre-MSAC consultation -
  • Outcome Not supported

Application details

Reason for application

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Service or technology in this application

Ultrasound imaging is used in a variety of clinical situations, to improve patient safety during anaesthesia for a wide range of surgical procedures. In particular it is used to assist vascular access procedures, and local anaesthetic nerve blockade.

Medical condition this application addresses

Ultrasound scanning has two main applications in anaesthesia practice. It is used to accurately localise major blood vessels, for the purpose of vascular catheterisation, and to localise individual nerves, for the purpose of local anaesthetic blockade. The ability to view the target vessel/nerve in real time, as opposed to blind injection based on knowledge of anatomy (which can vary), improves the safety of such procedures, by decreasing the probability of inadvertent damage to the vessel/nerve, and other nearby anatomical structures. These complications of inadvertent needle placement can be life-threatening. Ultrasound also provides benefits by increasing the success rate of such procedures, in comparison to blind techniques.

Meetings to consider this application

  • PASC meeting: 
    • 16 to 17 August 2012
    • 13 to 14 December 2012
  • ESC meeting: 
    • 8 to 10 October 2014
  • MSAC meeting: 
    • 26 to 28 November 2014