The Prevention of Hypotension After Epidural Analgesia After Major Surgery

• Status: Completed
• Trial end date: 2018-09-14
• Target enrollment: 0
• Participant gender: All

Summary

Epidural analgesia via continuous epidurally infused local anesthetic agent (LA) is widely and very successfully used routinely for perioperative pain control in patients undergoing major orthopedic and abdominal surgery since 1928. The choice currently depends on the preference of the APS physician in charge of the case. A frequent unwanted side effect of epidural block is hypotension due to the epidurally injected LA blocking the sympathetic nerves and thus the patient's response to hypotension, which is usually due to hypovolemia and/or an unopposed parasympathetic (via the vagus nerve) nervous system. The purpose of this research study is to see if adding epinephrine, to the epidural anesthetic will decrease possible side effects, such as low blood pressure, and lead to a better effect of the epidural anesthetic.

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

Details

• Lead Sponsor: University of Florida
• Collaborator: I. Heermann Anesthesia Foundation
• Treatments: Epinephrine; Epinephryl borate; Racepinephrine; Ropivacaine

Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• undergoing epidural analgesia to treat perioperative pain associated with major surgery

• undergoing major thoracic surgery

• undergoing major abdominal surgery

• undergoing major orthopaedic surgery

Exclusion Criteria:

• sepsis

• acute trauma

• coagulopathy

• preoperative hemodynamic instability

• symptomatic coronary artery disease

• patients from the ICU whose tracheas were intubated for any cause

• allergies to medications in the protocol

• primary or secondary block failure