Interventional Pain Medicine - Intrathecal Infusion

Intrathecal Infusion

Delivery of an opioid such as morphine, hydromorphone, fentanyl, sufentanyl or meperidine directly into the subarachnoid cavity (fig. 5) provides enhanced analgesia with reduced systemic side effects, and has reduced the level of pain in otherwise intractable cases. The anxiolytic clonidine, or the nonopioid analgesic ziconotide, and local anesthetics such as bupivacaine, ropivacaine or tetracaine may also be infused along with the opioid.