IV regional anesthesia can offer a more favorable patient recovery profile and shorter postoperative nursing care time and hospital discharge time than an isoflurane-based general anesthetic or brachial plexus block technique for hand surgery.

Compared with lidocaine, intravenous regional anesthesia with ropivacaine appears to be comparable but has longer-lasting residual anesthesia.

We conclude that 0.375% ropivacaine provides effective anesthesia and superior postoperative analgesia compared with 0.5% lidocaine when forearm IVRA is used.