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The following is a summary of “Ultrasound-Guided Serratus Anterior Plane Block for Acute Pain Management in Emergency Medicine: A Systematic Review,” published in the February 2025 issue of The Journal of Emergency Medicine by Gawel et al.
The use of the serratus anterior plane block (SAPB) by emergency physicians had increased, but clinical evidence supporting its utility in the emergency department (ED) remained limited and lacked a comprehensive summary.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study to summarize and examine the utility of ultrasound-guided SAPB performed by emergency physicians for acute pain management in the ED.
They tracked the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines and searched PubMed, Scopus, and Cochrane databases from inception to October 2023. Studies on SAPB performed by emergency physicians were identified, reviewed, and qualitatively summarized.
The results showed 14 articles involving 81 individuals, where emergency physicians performed SAPBs for 5 indications: rib fracture, tube thoracostomy, acute herpes zoster, chest wall burns, and unspecified chest wall injury, SAPBs performed in the ED were linked to improved subjective and objective pain measures, with no reported complications.
Investigators concluded that SAPB, when performed by trained emergency physicians, might have been a reasonable analgesia strategy for managing various causes of acute chest wall pain in the ED.
Source: jem-journal.com/article/S0736-4679(25)00023-X/abstract
