Nerve Block Ultrasound

What it does

Nerve Block Ultrasound reads a recorded clip of an ultrasound-guided regional anaesthesia procedure. Upload one block clip and name the block; the run identifies the structures the anaesthesiologist aims for and avoids, and follows the needle through the recording.

It returns two sections. The first outlines, on every frame, the nerves or plexus targeted by that block and the landmarks around them: arteries, fascial planes and the pleura. The second locates the needle shaft and tip frame by frame and reconstructs its trajectory. Together they answer, after the procedure, whether the target plane was adequate and where the needle went during the procedure.

Intended use

The run reads clips after they were recorded. Its uses are training, quality assurance and documentation: a resident's block reviewed with the target and needle path marked, a department auditing its block recordings, and a structured note of the sono-anatomy seen.

Who it is for

Anaesthesiologists and anaesthesia residents, regional-anaesthesia fellowship programmes, simulation and teaching centres, emergency physicians who perform blocks, and quality teams. Developers add the run to training platforms, procedure logs and departmental QA tools.

Accepted input

• Block clip: one B-mode cine of the procedure as a DICOM Ultrasound Multi-frame object or an MP4/MOV recording; one run reads one clip.
• Block type (required): the name of the block, for example an interscalene or axillary brachial plexus block, which tells the run which nerves and landmarks to expect.

Requirements

Requirement	Why
Cine, not a still	The needle is followed across frames and its trajectory is built from the sequence
Block type given	The target structures and their expected neighbours depend on the block
Target region in view	Plane adequacy is judged on the frames where the target is visible
Needle visible in the clip	Tip and shaft can only be located on frames where the needle appears

Screen recordings from a handheld device or a teaching station are accepted, since this read does not depend on millimetre calibration.

Optional context

The purpose of the review (teaching, complication review, documentation) can go in clinical_context.

The result

One JSON result in two sections. Masks are returned per frame as DICOM SEG, and an overlay video shows the structures and the needle on the original clip.

Section	Content
Nerves and landmarks	Per-frame segmentation of the target nerve or plexus and surrounding landmarks (arteries, fascia, pleura), with target-plane adequacy
Needle tip and trajectory	Needle shaft and tip location per frame and the reconstructed trajectory
Draft report	Opt-in (options.report): an English narrative that interprets the result for the reader (findings, impression, limitations); every number is checked against the findings

Standards

• DICOM: SEG for nerve, plexus and landmark masks per frame; SR Measurement Report TID 1500; Secondary Capture and MP4 overlays for review; Encapsulated PDF for documentation.
• Terminology: SNOMED CT for nerves, plexus and anatomical landmarks.

Reading notes

Target-plane adequacy reflects whether the expected structures for the named block were visible together. The needle section reports where the tip was seen; frames without a visible tip are marked as such.

Related models

• us/msk reads nerve, tendon and joint studies, including the median nerve at the carpal tunnel.