A numerical investigation into factors affecting anesthetic distribution during spinal anesthesia

The factors affecting distribution of anesthetic within the spinal column are of current interest due to recent reports of neurological injury occurring during spinal anesthesia. This paper describes a numerical model for simulating anesthetic dispersion, and applies the model to the evaluation of spinal-column size, anesthetic injection rate, and catheter orientation as factors influencing the anesthetic distribution. The model is based upon the finite-element method and incorporates a three-dimensional geometry derived from images of human spinal columns. Simulation results show that the ratio of the cross-sectional dimension of the subarachnoid space within the spinal column to the diameter of the catheter is a critical parameter, with low values of this ratio producing the most uniform anesthetic distributions. Increasing injection rate is found to produce a less uniform distribution in a global sense (higher total volume of anesthetic in the ‘sacral’ half) but a more uniform distribution in a localized sense (lower concentrations at critical points). Finally, the anesthetic distribution is demonstrated to be highly sensitive to orientation angle at high injection rates.