• Lin Liu, Xin-Xin Ni, Ling-Wei Zhang, Kai Zhao, Hong Xie, and Jiang Zhu.
• Department of Anesthesiology, Second Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, 1055 Sanxiang Road, Suzhou, Jiangsu, 215004, P.R. China.
• J Anesth. 2021 Feb 1; 35 (1): 3-9.

PurposeAlthough uniportal video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) has been widely used, the associated postoperative pain is still severe. Currently, a variety of regional anesthesia methods have been used to relieve postoperative pain. In our study, we wanted to evaluate the effectiveness of ultrasound-guided erector spinae plane block (ESPB) as a postoperative analgesia after uniportal VATS.MethodsEighty patients scheduled to undergo uniportal VATS were randomly divided into Group ESP and Group C. In Group ESP, the patients underwent ultrasound-guided ESPB under general anesthesia before surgery, while Group C was set as blank control group without ESPB. The primary outcome was the sufentanil dose within 24 h after surgery. The secondary outcomes mainly included postoperative pain scores at 2, 4, 8, and 24 h evaluated using a numeric rating scale (NRS), intraoperative opioid dosage, levels of inflammatory cytokines, including tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and interleukin-10 (IL-10) in the plasma, side effect profile, and length of postoperative hospital stay.ResultsPostoperative sufentanil consumption (32.5 ± 6.3 μg vs. 42.8 ± 7.6 μg, P < 0.001) was significantly lower in Group ESP than in Group C. Intraoperative sufentanil consumption was significantly lower in Group ESP than in Group C (P < 0.001). The postoperative NRS score and levels of inflammatory cytokines were significantly lower in Group ESP than in Group C (P < 0.05).ConclusionsUltrasound-guided ESPB decreased the consumption of sufentanil both postoperatively and intraoperatively for patients undergoing uniportal VATS and appeared to be an effective treatment option.

15 keywords...

hide…