"Dry tap" during spinal anaesthesia turns out to be epidural abscess

Abstract

We report a case of "dry tap" during spinal anaesthesia in a patient posted for incision and drainage of lower limb with cellulitis. When the patient was being given sub-arachnoid block (SAB) for regional anaesthesia, it turned out to be a case of pyogenic ilio-psoas abscess extended up to the paravertebral and epidural spaces. The causative organism was Staphylococcus aureus. This is probably the first case reported when epidural abscess is diagnosed during SAB.

Keywords

• Dry tap
• epidural abscess
• spinal anaesthesia
• sub-arachnoid block