Ultrasound-Guided Lateral Femoral Cutaneous Nerve Cryoneurolysis for Analgesia in Patients With Burns.

Autologous skin grafting from the thigh is frequently required for treatment of burns and is associated with intense pain at the donor site. Local anesthetic-based (LA) nerve blocks of the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve (LFCN) have been demonstrated to provide analgesia when the graft is taken from the lateral thigh. However, the duration of these single injection blocks has been reported to average only 9 hours, whereas the pain from the procedure lasts days or weeks. Continuous LA nerve blocks can also be used to provide analgesia during serial debridement of burns, although this requires placement of a perineural catheter which may increase infection risk in a population with an increased susceptibility to infection. Cryoneurolysis of the LFCN can potentially provide analgesia of the lateral thigh for skin graft harvesting or serial burn debridement that lasts far longer than conventional LA nerve blocks. Here, we present a series of three patients who received a combination of a LA nerve block and cryoneurolysis nerve block of the LFCN for analgesia of the lateral thigh. Two of these patients had the blocks placed before harvesting a split thickness skin graft. The third received the blocks for outpatient wound care of a burn to the lateral thigh. In all cases, the resulting analgesia lasted more than 1 week. A single cryoneurolysis block of the LFCN successfully provided extended duration analgesia of the lateral thigh for autologous skin graft donor site or wound care of a burn in three patients.

The association of neuraxial versus general anesthesia with inpatient admission following arthroscopic knee surgery.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: Arthroscopic knee procedures are increasingly being performed in an outpatient setting. Appropriate intraoperative anesthesia is vital to prevent complications such as unanticipated hospital admission. We examined differences in complications between general (GA) vs neuraxial anesthesia (NA) as the primary anesthetic for patients undergoing arthroscopic knee procedures. DESIGN: This was a retrospective cohort study. We queried the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program for arthroscopic knee procedures performed between 2007 and 2016. We compared postoperative complication rates between propensity-matched cohorts (NA vs GA). The anesthesia groups were matched based on age, race, BMI, gender, diabetes, smoking history, COPD, CHF, functional status, HTN, ASA class, steroid use, bleeding disorder history, and readmission status. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression were used to compare factors associated with inpatient admission - defined as hospital length of stay >1 day. PATIENTS: A total of 57,494 patients were included - 55,257 GA and 2237 NA patients. MAIN RESULTS: Among the matched cohorts, NA patients were significantly more likely to be admitted to the hospital postoperatively (p < 0.001). Neuraxial anesthesia (OR 5.93, 95% CI 4.90-7.21) use was also significant in the final multivariable regression model for inpatient admission. Additional significant predictors for inpatient admission included history of bleeding disorder (OR 5.44, 95% CI 2.14-12.76), Asian race (OR 6.47, 95% CI 4.90-8.56), COPD (OR 3.10, 95% CI 1.94-4.82), diabetes (OR 1.90, 95% CI 1.43-2.49), and increased operation time (OR 3.01, 95% CI 2.69-3.37). CONCLUSIONS: NA was significantly associated with inpatient admission following knee arthroscopy. Further research should focus on examining the reason for this association and methods to reduce inpatient admission for patients undergoing arthroscopic knee procedures using neuraxial anesthesia.