Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Neck nerve block anesthesia could easily cause a serious anesthetic accidents and complications. Till now, we are in the clinical exploration stage in establishment of three-dimensional visual model of the cervical nerve and virtual simulation of cervical nerve block.
OBJECTIVE: To explore the application of three-dimensional virtual punctuation simulation in cervical nerve block.
METHODS: Continuous CT angiography and MRI myelography sectional images were selected from the cervical part of one healthy volunteer, half-auto cut and reconstruction were taken to skeleton, muscles, artery, veins, thyroid gland, laryngeal cartilages and spinal cord etc. with the Mimics software. Medical computer-aided design module was used to reconstruct the nerve and other small anatomical structures. Three-dimensional model of cervical nerves and its surrounding relational local anatomic structure were successfully displayed and cervical nerves punctuation were virtual emulated, including simulation of superficial cervical plexus block, deep cervical plexus and stellate block.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Superficial cervical plexus block, deep cervical plexus and stellate block were successfully simulated, three-dimensions adjoin relation of the virtual pin with skeleton, carotid arteries, jugular veins, muscles, spinal cord, cervical plexus and stellate ganglion were successfully displayed, and pin’s safe angle, depth or optimization path were measured. A three-dimensional virtual punctuation simulation can provide visualized morphologic data for cervical nerve block.