Ricerc@Sapienza

Epidurals are the most diffused loco-regional techniques
for the relief of operative, postoperative, and chronic pain
and are used for about 50% of deliveries. Currently, doctors still
identify epidural space relying on subjective perception, by using
“blind” manual techniques to which are associated failure rate
up to 7%. In the last years, many systems aimed at assisting and
guiding the placement of epidural needle have been proposed. In
particular, optical systems basically rely on the integration inside
the epidural needle lumen of optical fiber probes providing realtime
discrimination of differing tissue types during needle penetration.
In this study, aside of providing an exhaustive overview
on the systems proposed so far, we also report on a novel sensorized
medical needle, based on the judicious integration of a
fiber Bragg grating sensor inside the epidural needle lumen. Our
device, by providing continuous and real-time measurements of the
pressure experienced by the needle tip during its advancement, is
able to effectively detect the needle passage from one tissue to the
other. A pilot study carried out on an epidural training phantom
demonstrates the validity of our approach for making the needle
placement into the epidural space easier and safer.