Anahi Perlas

Biography

Since 2001 she has played a significant role in improving our understanding of central neuraxial and peripheral nerve sonoanatomy and has contributed to the development of image-guided techniques with the ultimate goal of improving the efficacy and safety of regional anesthesia. As the Director of the Clinical Regional Anesthesia Program at the Toronto Western Hospital, she has led a growing team of clinicians through a time of rapid expansion of clinical services. She is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal Regional Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine. More recently, since 2007 she has been working on the development of a point-of-care application of sonography to evaluate gastric content and volume at the bedside to inform aspiration risk assessment. She has demonstrated that this new diagnostic tool is valid and reliable. She is currently collaborating with other clinical researchers locally, nationally and internationally to fully validate this clinical tool in obese and non-obese adults, children and pregnant women. Her method and framework of gastric content evaluation is being rapidly adopted into anesthesia residency curricula locally as well as internationally. The ground work for this development has been supported by several peer-reviewed grants from the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation and the Canadian Society of Anesthesiologists. Dr. Perlas has published over 45 peer-reviewed articles related to both research focus areas and lectures often at national and international events.

Research Interest

Dr. Perlas’s research focuses on the development and validation of innovative perioperative applications of ultrasound imaging to improve patient safety.