Updates in surgery
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Ultrasound-guided transversus abdominis plane block for retroperitoneal varicocele repair. Could it be an anesthesia method?
To assess the efficacy of transversus abdominis plane (TAP) block as anesthesia method for retroperitoneal varicocele repair and to evaluate its postoperative analgesic effectiveness. Thirty-three consecutive male patients undergoing retroperitoneal varicocele repair (Palomo technique) were enrolled in this study. Patients were randomly allocated to undergo ultrasound-guided TAP block anesthesia (case group), or conventional spinal anesthesia (control group). ⋯ Moreover, the need of rescue analgesia resulted significantly higher in the control group (p = 0.03). This is the first study showing that TAP block could be employed as an effective and feasible anesthesia method for the retroperitoneal varicocelectomy. Moreover, our results demonstrate that this method is more effective than spinal anesthesia in the pain control after varicocele repair.