Overview of Regional Anesthesia Complications

Dural sinus thrombosis following epidural analgesia for delivery: a clinical case

“… 3 Otherwise, the use of an Epidural Blood Patch (EBP) to treat spinal headache after accidental dural puncture is well recognized, and although the success rate is as high as 90%, 1 there is evidence to suggest that this treatment can cause DST as the same way after a diagnostic lumbar puncture due to persisting lumbar meningeal wound. 2 …”

“…A thorough history is important to exclude other possible diagnoses before assuming that the headache is of spinal origin. The common and serious causes of persistent headache in the puerperium after regional anesthesia are 2 : spinal headache; migraine; pregnancy-induced hypertension; meningitis; cerebral tumor; subarachnoid hemorrhage; subdural hematoma; cerebral vein thrombosis. Before the development of seizures or neurological signs it is difficult to distinguish headache of DST from ordinary spinal headache (PDPH).…”

“… 1 On the other hand, unrecognized dural puncture occurs in about 1.5% of cases. 2 Thus it is not uncommon for a patient to develop a persistent postpartum headache following epidural analgesia. Before treating the headache in such patients one has to consider other conditions which can also produce headache.…”