Regional anesthesia and pain medicine
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · May 2019
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Comparative StudyComparison of two ultrasound-guided techniques for greater occipital nerve injections in chronic migraine: a double-blind, randomized, controlled trial.
Two ultrasound (US)-guided techniques for greater occipital nerve (GON) block have been described for the management of headache disorders: a "proximal or central" technique targeting the GON at the level of the second cervical vertebra and a "distal or peripheral" technique targeting the GON at the level of the superior nuchal line. In this multicenter, prospective, randomized control trial, we compared accuracy, effectiveness, and safety of these two techniques in patients with chronic migraines (CMs). ⋯ This study was designed to compare two different US-guided approaches for blocking the GON. Our results demonstrate that both distal and proximal techniques can provide a short-term improvement in headache intensity, reduction in number of headache days per week, and an improvement in sleep interruption. The proximal GON technique may confer more sustained analgesic benefit compared with the distal approach in patients with CM headaches.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · May 2019
Randomized Controlled TrialTransversus thoracis muscle plane block in cardiac surgery: a pilot feasibility study.
Cardiac surgery patients often experience significant pain after median sternotomy. The transversus thoracis muscle plane (TTP) block is a newly developed, single-shot nerve block technique that provides analgesia for the anterior chest wall. In this double-blind pilot study, we assessed the feasibility of performing this novel block as an analgesic adjunct. ⋯ The TTP block is a novel pain management strategy poststernotomy. The results reveal a high patient recruitment, adherence, and satisfaction rate, and provide some preliminary data supporting safety.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · May 2019
Randomized Controlled TrialImpact of patient choice for different postcesarean delivery analgesic protocols on opioid consumption: a randomized prospective clinical trial.
Choice of postcesarean delivery analgesic protocol may improve pain experience and reduce analgesic requirements. ⋯ Having a choice compared with no choice routine care did not reduce oxycodone requirements or pain scores. However, women have insight into their analgesic needs; women offered a choice and who chose the higher dose analgesic protocol required more oxycodone, and women who chose the lower dose protocol required less oxycodone. Despite providing additional analgesic (six times more intrathecal morphine plus gabapentin in high dose vs low dose protocols), we still did not equalize postcesarean oxycodone requirement differences between groups.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Mar 2019
Randomized Controlled TrialClinical effectiveness of single dose of intravenous dexamethasone on the duration of ropivacaine axillary brachial plexus block: the randomized placebo-controlled ADEXA trial.
The effect of intravenous dexamethasone on the duration of axillary plexus block performed using ropivacaine is not described. The aim of this study is to assess the effect of intravenous dexamethasone on the duration of axillary plexus block analgesia after distal upper arm surgery. ⋯ This study showed that intravenous dexamethasone delayed for 6 hours the time to first analgesic intake after upper arm surgery under axillary plexus block performed with the long-lasting local anesthetic ropivacaine. This suggests that intravenous dexamethasone could be an interesting adjuvant to axillary plexus block.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Mar 2019
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative StudyRandomized prospective trial of cooled versus traditional radiofrequency ablation of the medial branch nerves for the treatment of lumbar facet joint pain.
No previous study has assessed the outcomes of cooled radiofrequency ablation (C-RFA) of the medial branch nerves (MBN) for the treatment of lumbar facet joint pain nor compared its effectiveness with traditional RFA (T-RFA). This study evaluated 6-month outcomes for pain, function, psychometrics, and medication usage in patients who underwent MBN C-RFA versus T-RFA for lumbar Z-joint pain. ⋯ When using a single diagnostic block paradigm with a threshold of >75% pain reduction, both treatment with both C-RFA and T-RFA resulted in a success rate of approximately 50% when defined by both improvement in pain and physical function at 6-month follow-up. While the success rate was higher in the C-RFA group, this difference was not statistically significant.