Pain Relief at Iliac Crest Bone Harvest Sites in Spine Surgery Using Bupivacaine

• Status: Completed
• Trial end date: 2011-10-01
• Target enrollment: 0
• Participant gender: All

Summary

The use of iliac crest bone graft (ICBG) remains the gold-standard in spinal reconstructive surgery for achieving fusion. Major complications from the harvesting of ICBG are rare, but chronic pain has been reported in 10-39%. Catheters implanted at the time of surgery have been used to provide local anesthetic at the harvest site for 24-48 hours after surgery. This has been shown to decrease chronic pain at 4 years post-operatively. A single application of local anesthetic at surgery has been shown to decrease pain at the harvest site for up to 5 days. No study has demonstrated a benefit to using a single application of local anesthetic at the ICBG site beyond 5 days. In current clinical practice, the use of a local anesthetic at the ICBG site is determined according to surgeon preference. The purpose of this study is to determine if a single application of bupivacaine at the ICBG site, as currently done in some cases, provides any pain relief beyond 5 days such as that demonstrated with longer infusions of local anesthetics.

• Phase: N/A
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers?: No

Details

• Lead Sponsor: Vanderbilt University
• Treatments: Anesthetics; Anesthetics, Local; Bupivacaine

Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• patients 18 years of age or older undergoing posterior cervical, thoracic, or lumbar surgery

• willingness to participate in the study.

Exclusion Criteria:

• individuals who underwent surgical intervention in the past 6 months

• previous iliac crest bone harvesting

• history of tumor and spondyloarthropathies (rheumatoid arthritis, seronegative arthritis)

• history of adverse reaction to local anesthetic

• history of severe pelvic and hip conditions that can interfere with the outcome assessment of the study

• opioid addiction

• pregnancy

• acute mental illness

• uncontrolled major depression and any other psychiatric disorders

• prisoners

• non-english speaking patients

• inability to understand the informed consent and demands of the study.