The Journal of foot and ankle surgery : official publication of the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
The use of a local anesthetic foot block in patients undergoing outpatient bony forefoot surgery: a prospective randomized controlled trial.
Foot blocks are known to prolong postoperative pain relief. Consequently, their use has been extended to patients having outpatient surgery, despite little evidence to show improved patient satisfaction. Indeed, patients having outpatient surgery actually may be less satisfied because they will first experience pain at home on the first postoperative night, which may be more severe than anticipated. ⋯ All patients were assessed at home by telephone interview on the first and second postoperative day. There was a significantly longer time to first perceived pain in the foot block group compared with the control group, but no difference in the number of postoperative analgesic tablets consumed, no difference in pain score on the first night, first postoperative or second postoperative day, or any difference in the overall patient satisfaction scores at 2 days. The authors conclude that a local foot block, although prolonging the time to first perceived pain, does not improve patient satisfaction and is not detrimental when used as analgesia in the outpatient setting.
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The os calcis is the most frequently fractured tarsal bone. In 1992 Sanders developed a classification system based on coronal and axial computed tomography (CT) scans of the calcaneus. This classification is the one used most frequently today in treatment decision making and reporting of results. ⋯ The subcategories of the classification were then further combined and a second weighted kappa test was performed to assess agreement between general classes. The weighted kappa value achieved was.48, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.37-0.59. We concluded that Sanders' classification system did prove to achieve moderate agreement among users, thus representing a useful classification system.