Comparison Between Ultrasound Guided Quadratus Lumborum Block and Erector Spinae Plane Block as an Analgesic Modality in Renal Transplant Donors

Overview

Open surgery remains one of the approaches used for those patients requiring partial or radical nephrectomy and is associated with a high incidence of intense immediate postoperative pain (Gupta et al., 2013; Bravi et al., 2019). Erector Spinae Plane block (ESPB) has grown as a standard analgesic approach for thoracic, abdominal, and extremities surgeries because of its speed, ease of execution, minimal risk of hypotension and safety for patients with coagulopathy. Although it is believed that the spinal neurons' ventral and dorsal rami are involved, the exact pathway is yet uncertain (Forero et al., 2016; Hamed et al., 2019).

Regional anesthesia techniques are commonly recommended for pain management in open nephrectomy as they decrease parenteral opioid requirements and improve patient satisfaction (Capdevila et al., 2017). Erector Spinae Plane block (ESPB), was initially described by Forero et al. (2016) for analgesia in thoracic neuropathic pain (Forero et al., 2016) and despite its recent literature it has also been widely used in both adults and children at deferent levels for deferent indications such as chronic shoulder pain (T2), thoracic surgery and breast surgery (T4-5) and upper abdominal surgery (T7-8) (Chin et al., 2017a; Chin et al., 2017b), however, most of the published trials regarding its analgesic effect following major open abdominal surgeries are case reports and rare. In this ultrasound-guided (USG) approach, a local anesthetic (LA) is injected between the erector spinae muscle and the trans-verse process of the thoracic vertebrae leading to spread of LA cephalad, caudally and through the paravertebral space (Forero et al., 2016; Chin et al., 2017a; Chin et al., 2017b). Quadratus Lumborum block (QLB) is a widely used as regional anesthesia technique as well. It has been used for reducing postoperative pain after cesarean section, laparotomy or laparoscopic procedure and hip surgery (Blanco et al., 2016; McCrum et al., 2018) it was defined for the first time by Blanco 2007 where the LA was injected at the anterolateral aspect of the QL muscle (type I QLB) (Blanco, 2007) Later, Børglum et al. (2013) used posterior transmuscular approach by detecting Shamrock sign and injecting the LA at the anterior aspect of the QL (type III QLB) (Børglum et al., 2013). Blanco and McDonnell, described another approach by injecting the LA at the posterior aspect of the QL muscle (type II QLB) (Blanco and McDonnell, 2013). Finally, the intramuscular QLB (type IV QLB) was performed by injecting LA directly into the QL muscle. Hence, this study is designed to assess the efficacy of Quadratus lumborum block in comparison with erector spinae plane block in reducing post-operative pain and additional opioid requirement within the first 24 h in patients undergoing open nephrectomy under general anaesthesia.