RESUMEN
A 69-year-old male truck driver with history of chronic anal fissures and facial basal cell carcinoma developed rectal bleeding and pain, and was diagnosed with a 5cm basal cell cancer of the anus with sphincter invasion. His workup entailed physical exam, CT and MRI which confirmed external and internal sphincter invasion without evidence of distant metastatic disease. After review of chemoradiation and surgical options, the patient elected to proceed with robotic-assisted abdominoperineal resection with end colostomy with complex local-tissue reconstruction. He is now two years out and disease free. While radiation and surgery have both been described in the literature as viable treatments, surgical resection may be the best option for patients with large lesions with sphincter invasion, who travel from afar and have occupational restrictions. This case highlights the importance of a multidisciplinary approach in assessing the patient with a rare disease process, presenting all viable options for treatment, and electing the optimal treatment through shared decision making.
RESUMEN
Opioid therapy has been the mainstay therapy of post-operative pain management in thoracic surgery patients. With the high incidence of chronic pain in thoracic surgery patients and adverse effects of opioids, we examined the safety and efficacy of cryoneurolysis as an adjunct for narcotic-free pain management in robotic-assisted thoracoscopic lobectomies. Ten consecutive patients undergoing robotic-assisted (DaVinci) pulmonary resection and cryoneurolysis were compared to ten patients managed without intraoperative cryoneurolysis. All patients received multimodal pain regimen including paravertebral blocks as per our institutional enhanced recovery pathway. Patients with chronic pain and chronic opioid use were excluded. We compared inpatient and outpatient opioid consumption measured in morphine equivalents (mme), incidence of opioid-free outpatient recovery, and adverse events. The two groups did not differ significantly in terms of baseline demographics. Both inpatient (88.13 vs 26.92 mme) and outpatient (118.5 vs 34.5 mme) use of narcotics were significantly lower in the cryoneurolysis group (p < 0.05) with seven of ten patients receiving cryoneurolysis able to recover without the use of opioids in the outpatient setting, compared to two in the control group. One patient reported post-operative neuralgia in each cryoneurolysis and control group. There were no readmissions in either group and mean length of stay was identical at 1.7 days in control group and 1.1 days in experimental group (p = 0.33). The use of intraoperative intercostal cryoneurolysis may safely reduce the utilization of outpatient opioids in patients undergoing robotic-assisted thoracoscopic surgery. A randomized controlled trial is warranted to validate these findings in a larger cohort of patients.