Arachnoiditis has been reported in patients who had received previous epidural injections of anesthetic agents. The purpose of this study was to determine if epidural injections of lidocaine are sufficient to cause arachnoiditis. Four monkeys that received a single epidural injection of lidocaine hydrochloride 1percnt; were compared to four controls that had epidural injections of 0.9percnt; saline. Four dogs that had multiple epidural injections of lidocaine hydrochloride 1percnt; were compared to four controls that had multiple injections of saline. All animals were killed on the eighty-fourth day of the experiment. The dural sac, containing nerve roots and spinal cord, was removed intact from the lumbar spinal canal, fixed, sectioned, stained, and examined microscopically for evidence of arachnoid inflammation and fibrosis. No significant changes were found in the treated animals. Lidocaine hydrochloride 1percnt; injected singly or repeatedly in the epidural space does not appear to be a cause of significant chronic meningeal reaction.
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