Infant Spinal Anesthesia: Minimizing Complications in a Frail Patient with Marble Bone Disease.

Marble bone disease, also known as osteopetrosis, is a heritable bone disease characterized by osteoclast dysfunction. The autosomal recessive form presents in childhood with multiple, systemic pathologies that place this population at increased risk of anesthetic complications. Invasive therapies or procedures requiring anesthesia are common in this population, such as those for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), which is  to-date the only curative treatment for osteopetrosis. This case study describes spinal anesthesia (SA) as an alternative to GETA in an ex-preterm neonate with osteopetrosis to achieve a smooth, hemodynamically stable induction of surgical anesthesia with avoidance of airway manipulation.