International Journal of Advances in Medicine | December 2020 | Vol 7 | Issue 12 Page 1846 International Journal of Advances in Medicine Bala M et al. Int J Adv Med. 2020 Dec;7(12):1846-1849 http://www.ijmedicine.com pISSN 2349-3925 | eISSN 2349-3933 Original Research Article Correlation of distance from skin to lumbar epidural space with age and height of patients Manju Bala 1 , Monica Chhikara 1 *, Deepika 1 , Kiranpreet Kaur 1 , Teena Bansal 1 , Sabiha Naz 2 INTRODUCTION Epidural anaesthesia is a central neuraxial block technique which acts by blocking spinal nerves in epidural space at the point of their emergence from dura before entering into intervertebral foramina. It was introduced in 1885 by corning and subsequent improvement in equipment, drugs and technique in last century has made it a popular and versatile procedure. 1 Epidural space is a potential space that lies between the dura and the periosteum lining the inside of vertebral canal. 2 This space can be reached in a midline sagittal plane by penetrating skin, subcutaneous tissues, supraspinous ligament, interspinous ligaments and ligamentum flavum. 3 Since it is a blind procedure, it is difficult to accurately identify the epidural space resulting into 1.5% failure rate. This can be due to excess fat, undue ossification or repeated puncture of the dura mater. 4 Various techniques have been used for localizing epidural space. These techniques are mainly based on either negative pressure 1 Department of Anaesthesia, 2 Department of Biochemistry, Pt. B. D. Sharma PGIMS Rohtak, Haryana, India Received: 13 October 2020 Revised: 19 November 2020 Accepted: 20 November 2020 *Correspondence: Dr. Monica Chhikara, E-mail: chhikara.monica@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT Background: Epidural block is a popular and versatile procedure with applications as sole anaesthetic, as an analgesic adjuvant to general anaesthesia and for post-operative analgesia in procedures involving lower limbs, perineum, pelvis, abdomen and thorax. However, success of the epidural technique depends upon the correct identification of epidural space. The knowledge of distance from skin to epidural space can help in better identification of epidural space and epidural catheter placement with fewer incidences of complications. We conducted a study to find the distance from skin to the epidural space and its correlation with patient height and age to improve the success rate. Methods: Seventy-four patients scheduled to undergo lower lumbar surgeries where epidural block was required as anaesthetic or analgesic, were included in the study. These patients were randomly divided into four different groups of 37 patients each according to their age (group A and group B) and height (group C and group D). In these patient’s epidural block was given by standard technique according to the need of surgery and epidural depth measured. Obtained results were compared among group A, B and group C, D depending on their age and height respectively. Results: In group A (age 20-30 years), mean epidural depth was 3.96±0.4 cm while in group B (age 30-40 years) mean epidural depth was 4.05±0.5 centimeters. In group C (height 155-169 cm) mean epidural depth was 3.88±0.4 centimeters while it was 4.13±0.5 centimeters in group D (height 170-184 cm). Conclusions: There was increase in epidural depth with increase in height of patients but there was no correlation between age of patients and epidural depth. Keywords: Epidural depth, Age, Height DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2349-3933.ijam20205046