Sympathetic blockade for complex regional pain syndrome

In the 1990s, the dogma that sympathetic blockade was a first-line treatment for complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) was shattered by accusations that benefits were due to placebo effects and that this treatment approach was “entrepreneurially inspired” [7]. Since then, systematic examination of the literature base has provided little support for the use of local anesthetic sympathetic blockade for CRPS, and has highlighted the scarcity of high-quality double-blind placebo-controlled trials with an adequate sample size and follow-up period [1,9]. However, as sympathetic blockade continues to be used therapeutically for CRPS in clinical practice [10], further examination of its efficacy is imperative...