• Maitreyee Mukherjee, Anupam Goswami, Sampa Dutta Gupta, Debabrata Sarbapalli, Ranabir Pal, and Sumit Kar.
• Department of Anaesthesiology, College of Medicine and JNM Hospital, Kalyani, West Bengal, India.
• Anesth Essays Res. 2010 Jul 1;4(2):75-80.

BackgroundAcute postoperative pain can cause detrimental effects on multiple organ systems, leading to chronic pain syndromes.ObjectiveTo compare thoracic epidural block (TEB) and paravertebral block (PVB) for relief of postoperative pain in adult patients undergoing thoracotomy.Materials And MethodsIn this randomized, single-blinded, prospective study, 60 adult patients of both sexes, belonging to ASA physical status I and II, were scheduled for elective thoracotomy under general anesthesia. They were randomly divided into two groups, A and B of 30 each, who were comparable in terms of demographic parameters and body weight. Group A received TEB and Group B received PVB. All the patients underwent thoracotomy under general anesthesia using a uniform standard anesthetic technique. Thirty minutes before the anticipated end of skin suture, blocks were activated in both the groups with 7.5 ml for TEB and 15 ml for thoracic PVB of 0.25% bupivacaine, along with 1 ml of fentanyl for postoperative analgesia.ResultsPatients receiving PVB for postoperative analgesia experienced better analgesia than those receiving TEB from the immediate postoperative period that lasted longer. Intragroup comparison showed that in the cases receiving TEB, there was a significant statistical difference in preoperative and postoperative values with regard to the mean systolic blood pressure (SBP), mean arterial pressure and mean pulse rate. However, in patients receiving PVB, significant difference in preoperative and postoperative values was seen in mean SBP only.ConclusionsWe observed longer duration of analgesia with PVB compared to TEB.

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