Analgesic Duration of Long Acting Local Anesthetics for Low Volume Ultrasound-guided Interscalene Brachial Plexus Block
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2019-04-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Severe pain following shoulder surgery is common and remains a major challenge. The
interscalene nerve block is well suited for operations on the shoulder or upper arm, for
providing surgical anesthesia as well as prolonged effective postoperative analgesia.
Modern ultrasound guided ISB (US-ISB) allows for more accurate, targeted deposition of local
anesthetic. The current trend is to lower the volume of local anesthetic for
ultrasound-guided interscalene block in order to reduce potential complications such as
phrenic nerve paralysis and local anesthetic toxicity. However, at low volumes the analgesic
duration of the block could be compromised. Studies to elucidate the best local anesthetic
agent, concentration and adjuncts to prolong analgesia at low volumes are needed. Ropivacaine
and Bupivacaine are long acting local anesthetics commonly used for peripheral nerve blocks,
however, there are no studies comparing their analgesic duration in the setting of low volume
interscalene block to date.
This study will investigate the analgesic duration of 0.5% Ropivacaine versus 0.5%
Bupivacaine with 1:200,000 epinephrine versus 1% Ropivacaine for low volume US-ISB.
This study aims to conduct a comparison of the duration of post operative analgesia achieved
by these agents, hence allowing the appropriate local anesthetic agent and concentration
selection in low-volume techniques.