Surgery of the chest in infants and small pediatric patients is challenging. Anesthesia for these patients often involves placement of a very small balloon in one side of the lung or the other to facilitate the surgery. This is called a bronchial blocker. We are conducting a study comparing the 5 published methods of placement of this blocker with a novel method.

We have also designed a new method for caudal anesthesia (similar to epidural anesthesia for women in labor) in pediatric patients that we believe may allow the dose of local anesthetic to be reduced, to reduce side effects and improve the safety of this procedure.