The Post-Operative Pain Management of Pediatric Supracondylar Elbow Fractures
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2011-06-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
The goal of this study is to compare different ways of treating pain after surgery. This
research study involves subjects who have a supracondylar elbow fracture and need surgery.
This type of fracture occurs when the humerus (upper arm bone) is broken just above the
elbow. Like any other surgery, you can expect that you will feel pain in the hours or days
after the operation. Currently, despite the common occurrence of this surgery, there is not a
standard way to treat and or prevent any of the pain afterwards.
At this hospital, oral (take by mouth) pain medicine is commonly used to treat pain after
this surgery.
In this study, pain will be treated in one of the following ways:
1. with oral pain medication
2. with oral pain medicine and an intraarticular shot (a shot into the elbow joint) of
bupivacaine (a "numbing" drug) or
3. with oral pain medicine and an intraarticular shot of ropivacaine (another "numbing"
drug). The shots will be given during surgery. Your participation will help us find out
which of these three pain control methods works the best.
The correct dosages of all drugs will be safely prescribed by the doctor on an individual
basis and all drugs will be used under the careful watch of your attending physician. All the
drugs used this study are approved by the FDA for use in adults but they are not specifically
approved for use in children. However, nearly 7 out of every 10 drugs approved for adults are
not specifically approved by the FDA for use in children. All drugs used in this study will
be used in a way that is considered to be safe and reasonable by the Children's Hospital.