Pain Management of Pecto-intercostal Fascial Block Versus Intravenous Fentanyl After Pediatric Cardiac Surgery

Overview

Cardiac surgical patients often experience significant postoperative pain at the median sternotomy site. In pediatric cardiac surgery, the recommended pre bypass dose of fentanyl to blunt the hemodynamic and metabolic stress response is 25-50 µg/kg Today lower doses are often used in order to achieve early extubation at such doses there is no guarantee that the stress response is completely abolished one way to overcome this problem is the use of the local anesthetic technique Regional anesthetic techniques reduce pain for up to 24 hours after cardiac surgery in children. Pectointercostal fascial block was first described by de la Torre in patients undergoing breast surgery. This novel technique blocks the anterior cutaneous nerve which is a branch of the intercostal nerve that gives sensory supply to the skin.

The aim of the current study is to detect the effectiveness of pecto-intercostal fascial block in relieving postoperative pain in noncyanotic pediatric patients undergoing elective cardiac surgery the primary goal of this randomized study is to compare the postoperative pain score in the first postoperative 24 hours and to detect total dose of fentanyl requirements. The secondary goals are intraoperative hemodynamic stress response to surgical stimuli, analgesic consumption in the studied groups, cross-clamping and bypass time, time to extubation, intensive care length of stay, and postoperative complications.

Conditions