Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

Several local anesthetics have added warnings on their labels notifying health care professionals that using the drugs in intra-articular devices, or pain pumps, following arthroscopic and other surgical procedures is not approved and has been linked to cases of a painful and debilitating condition of the shoulder joint known as chondrolysis, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Drug Safety report for February 2010. The cases of chondrolysis were reported in both pediatric and adult patients following intra-articular infusions of the anesthetics with and without epinephrine, a hormone neurotransmitter, for 48 to 72 hours following surgery.

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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning orthopedic and anesthesia health care providers and hospital risk managers not to continuously infuse local anesthetics directly into the intra-articular joint space because this use of anesthetics has led to a painful and debilitating condition known as chondrolysis, or the decaying and destruction of the cartilage.

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