Local Anesthetic Systemic Toxicity After Local Infiltration Analgesia Following a Total Knee Arthroplasty

Multimodal analgesia is nowadays a recognized method to reduce postoperative pain. Infiltration of the surgical site with local anesthetic is one of the methods widely used for its effectiveness and its lower risk of toxicity, particularly in orthopedic surgery. We present here a case of local anesthetic systemic toxicity (LAST) that occurred on two different occasions to the same patient after total knee replacement surgeries. The clinical presentation of the syndrome was not typical for this 74-year-old patient who presented with respiratory distress associated with impaired consciousness. After the elimination of the most common diagnoses, it was finally the administration of Intralipid that followed with clinical improvement.