Aspetti clinici e medico-legali nella terapia infiltrativa

The usefulness of local infiltrative treatment is recognized in most guidelines: it consists in the instillation of drugs (steroids, local anesthetics or hyaluronic acid) directly at the site of illness (intra- or periarticular or in soft tissues). Treatment indications must be documented in a clinical report or certification including objective clinical data. Infiltration is an invasive procedure that involves possible side effects and complications. Therefore, the patient must receive from the doctor all the information necessary to grant a valid consent to treatment. During the informative interview, which can be accompanied (but not replaced) by the delivery of a short information form to the patient, the doctor must explain, in a comprehensible way for the single patient, diagnosis, type of treatment proposed, its modalities of execution, potential benefits and risks, possible complications and alternative therapies, behavior that the patient has to observe during the treatment process. The law 219/2017 expressly stated the necessity of the acquisition of consent in written form. In this paper, samples of informative and consent forms for infiltrative therapy are proposed: they can represent a useful tool for both professionals and patients.