Preoperative ultrasound for runoff-venous decompression of peripheral nerves for arteriovenous access-related pain in the upper limb.

INTRODUCTION: Arteriovenous access (AVA)-related pain treated successfully with runoff-venous decompression of the causative nerve, following ultrasound (US)-assisted preoperative evaluation, has never been reported.

CASE PRESENTATION: A 57-year-old man suffering from constant exhausting pains along the outflow cephalic vein of the radiocephalic arteriovenous fistula at the wrist and the antecubital fossa, was treated surgically after the diagnosis of AVA-related pain derived from cephalic vein compression on two peripheral cutaneous nerves, the superficial radial nerve (SRN) and the lateral antebrachial cutaneous nerve (LACN).

TECHNIQUE: The SRN and LACN, which ran along and/or provided sensory innervation to the painful regions in the upper limb, were traced using ultrasonography in the short axis and proved to be compressed by and in contact with veins where the pain existed, at the wrist and the antecubital fossa. Once diagnostic US-guided blocks of both were performed and pain disappeared, they were identified as the causative nerves. The cephalic venous decompression surgeries that separated and transposed the veins away from the SRN and the LACN were performed sequentially under pneumatic tourniquet inflation to improve nerve visualization.

RESULTS: The pains disappeared after the operations. An adequate length of the runoff cephalic vein was maintained for needle cannulations during hemodialysis.

CONCLUSIONS: Outflow venous compression to the peripheral nerves may be a cause of AVA-related pain. US-guided assessments of the nerves may improve the safety and efficiency of venous decompression surgeries to treat AVA-related pains.