Super-obese patients are at an increased risk of perioperative complications due to underlying comorbidities and difficult airways. Regional anesthesia avoids airway manipulation and provides superior analgesia, but is technically demanding in this population. We report two super-obese trauma patients, in whom a preoperative scout scan failed to reveal the desired anatomy. Computed tomography (CT) identified the target depth and marked the needle trajectories for a successful regional block. This preoperative CT-based planning for anesthesia in super-obese patients has not been described previously. However, real-time CT-guided blocks have been used in challenging anatomy in nonobese patients.
Diwan et al. (Mon,) studied this question.