• Ahmed M Elewa, Mohammed Faisal, Folke Sjöberg, and Mohamed E Abuelnaga.
• Department of anaesthesia, critical care and pain management, Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University, Ard Elgameiat, Ismailia, Egypt.
• BMC Anesthesiol. 2022 Jun 18; 22 (1): 189189.

BackgroundPain control following breast surgery is of utmost importance in order to reduce the chance of chronic pain development, and facilitate early rehabilitation. The erector spinae plane block (ESPB) is a recently developed regional anaesthesia procedure successfully used for different types of surgical procedures including thoracic and abdominal surgeries.MethodsA double-blind, randomized, controlled trial was conducted on 90 patients who were scheduled for modified radical mastectomy (MRM). Patients were randomly categorized into groups I (women who underwent ESPB), II (women who underwent paravertebral block (PVB), and III (women who underwent general anaesthesia).ResultsThe ESPB (4.9 ± 1.2 mg) and PVB (5.8 ± 1.3 mg) groups had significantly lower total morphine consumption than the control group had (16.4 ± 3.1 mg; p < 0.001). Notably, patients in the ESPB group had insignificantly lower morphine consumption than those in the PVB group had (p = 0.076). Moreover, patients in the ESPB and PVB groups had a significantly longer time to first required anaesthesia than those in the control group (7.9 ± 1.2 versus 7.5 ± 0.9 versus 2 ± 1.2 h, respectively; p < 0.001). The postoperative visual analog scale scores were lower in the ESPB and PVB groups than in the control group on the first 24 h after the procedure (p < 0.001).ConclusionESPB and PVB provide effective postoperative analgesia for women undergoing MRM. The ESPB appears to be as effective as the PVB.Trial RegistrationThe study was registered before the enrolment of the first patient at the Pan African Clinical Trial Registry ( www.pactr.org ) database. Identification number for the registry is (PACTR202008836682092).© 2022. The Author(s).

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