Public lecture by Prof Anne Agur from University of Toronto

You are invited to join the lecture by Professor Anne Agur (PhD, University of Toronto, Canada) on Friday, 27 April at 13:00 at A. Linkbergi auditorium (Puusepa Street 8) titled „Peripheral sensory nerve blocks and radiofrequency ablation: An alternative pain management strategy".

Professor Agur completed her M.Sc. and later a PhD degree in anatomy at the University of Toronto. She teaches Anatomy, Histology, Neuroanatomy and Embryology. Anne is course director of the Physical and Occupational Therapy Gross Anatomy courses and also contributes to the anatomy course in the Structure and Function block and the Neuroanatomy course of the Brain and Behaviour block of first year medicine. She is the current editor of “Grant’s Atlas of Anatomy” and a co-author of “Essential Clinical Anatomy” with Professor Emeritus Keith L. Moore. Her research interests include skeletal muscle form and function, clinically applied Neuroanatomy, and Anatomy education.

Summary of the lecture:
Image guided peripheral nerve blocks and radiofrequency ablation of sensory innervation to joints provide an alternative to opoids in the treatment of post-operative and chronic pain. Optimization of these techniques requires precise localization the sensory nerves innervating the joint capsule relative to landmarks visible with image guidance systems.  Previous anatomical studies are scarce and lack the detail necessary for image guided injection/ablation. This talk will focus on the innervation patterns of the sacroiliac and knee joints. The progression from anatomical bench studies of sensory innervation to implementation and assessment of the effectiveness of the proposed techniques in clinical trials will be described.

Professor Anne Agur is the oponent of Elle Põldoja, who will defend her PhD on April 25th at 15:00 in Biomedicum (Ravila 19, room 1006) titled „Structure and blood supply of the superior part of the shoulder joint capsule“.