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No added benefit in pain relief seen with axillary nerve block after elbow surgery
The use of axillary nerve block did not provide additional gains in postoperative pain control in patient after arthroscopic elbow surgery, according to results of this randomized controlled study.
“Postoperative pain levels after arthroscopic elbow surgery could be well managed with oral analgesics and local anesthetic. An axillary nerve block was not found to provide any postoperative pain control benefits,” Takuro Wada, MD, and colleagues wrote in their study.
They randomly assigned 36 patients who had arthroscopic elbow surgery under general anesthesia to either receive axillary nerve block (Ax group) or portal site injections of a local anesthetic (Lo group). Researchers assessed visual analog scale (VAS) pain scores, total amount of oral analgesics and patient satisfaction during the first 48 hours after surgery.
During the first 12-hour period, researchers found mean VAS pain score overall at rest was 37 points. The mean pain VAS scores were lowered to 18 points at 24 hours after surgery and to nine points at 48 hours after surgery.
The researchers did not observe any intergroup differences between the Ax and Lo groups at any time point after surgery. During the 48-hour study period, the Ax group required 5.1 loxoprofen tablets while the Lo group required 4.5 loxoprofen tablets. Study results showed both the Ax and Lo groups had mean overall patient satisfaction scores of 91, according to the study.
Disclosure: The researchers have no relevant financial disclosures.