Articles: surgery.
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Curr Opin Anaesthesiol · Feb 2025
Integrating regional blocks into Enhanced Recovery After Surgery protocols for cesarean delivery: optimizing postoperative recovery.
This review aims to synthesize the current literature on the use of regional blocks to enhance and optimize postoperative recovery after cesarean delivery, highlighting key strategies, challenges, and emerging trends. ⋯ Managing pain after cesarean delivery continues to pose a significant challenge. The overall prevalence of acute postoperative pain remains high (58%) and, even when strict adherence to established guidelines is ensured, approximately 25% of patients report inadequate pain control. Within a multimodal analgesic framework, when neuraxial morphine - still considered the gold standard - is not an option, the use of peripheral nerve and fascial plane blocks has demonstrated clear benefits. Recent literature suggests that quadratus lumborum block may serve as a promising alternative to intrathecal morphine for women who cannot tolerate opioids. Additionally, incorporating certain regional techniques alongside neuraxial morphine may further improve postoperative analgesia, especially for patients at high risk of severe postoperative pain and those who have contraindications to other analgesic modalities.
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Breast surgery is frequently associated with significant acute postoperative pain, necessitating effective pain management strategies. Both thoracic paravertebral block (PVB) and interpectoral plane and pectoserratus plane (IP+PS) blocks have been used to relieve pain after breast surgery. ⋯ PVB and IP+PS blocks offer comparable analgesic efficacy and opioid-sparing effects after breast surgery, with no meaningful differences in 24-h MME consumption, pain scores, or PONV incidence.