Comparison of the efficacy of ultrasound guided pectoralis-II block and intercostal approach to paravertebral block (proximal intercostal block) among patients undergoing conservative breast surgery: A randomised control study.

Background and Aims: Regional anesthesia techniques have attributed a multimodal dimension to pain management after breast surgery. The intercostal approach to paravertebral block has been gaining interest, becoming an alternative to conventional paravertebral block, devoid of complexities in its approach, being recognized as the proximal intercostal block. Parallel to the widespread acceptance of fascial plane blocks in breast surgery, pectoralis II block has emerged as being non-inferior to paravertebral block. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of two independent fascial plane blocks, proximal intercostal block and pectoralis II block, in breast conservation surgery. Material and Methods: This prospective, randomized control, pilot study included 40 patients, randomly allocated among two groups: proximal intercostal block and pectoralis II block. Results: The pectoralis II block group had significantly lower pain scores at rest in the immediate postoperative period but became comparable with the proximal intercostal block group in the late postoperative period. Pain scores on movement though were lower at 0 h postoperatively and became comparable with the proximal intercostal block group subsequently. Although the pectoralis II group had earlier recovery in the post-anesthesia care unit, the overall time to discharge from the hospital was comparable and not influential. Both groups had high patient satisfaction scores and similar perioperative opioid consumption. Sedation, time to first rescue analgesia, and postoperative nausea vomiting scores were comparable. Conclusion: Fascial plane blocks in the form of pectoralis II and proximal intercostal block facilitate pain alleviation, early return to shoulder arm exercise, and enhanced recovery, which should render them to be incorporated into multimodal interdisciplinary pain management in breast conservation surgery.

Time to FOCUS - 'Palliative Medicine Point-of-Care Ultrasound'.

Point-of-care diagnosis has become the need of the hour and along with its guided interventions, ultrasound could be utilised bedside in a palliative care patient. Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in palliative care medicine is fast emerging and has varied applications ranging from performing bedside diagnostic evaluation to the performance of interventional paracentesis, thoracocentesis and chronic pain interventions. Handheld ultrasound devices have transformed the application of POCUS and should revolutionise the future of home-based palliative care. Palliative care physicians should be enabled to carry out bedside ultrasounds at home care and hospice setting for achieving rapid symptom relief. The aim of POCUS in palliative care medicine should be adequate training of palliative care physicians, transforming the applicability of this technology to OPD as well as community driven to achieve home outreach. The goal is towards empowering technology by reaching out to the community rather than the terminally ill patient transported for the hospital admission. Palliative care physicians should receive mandatory training in POCUS to enable diagnostic proficiency and early triaging. The inclusion of ultrasound machine in an outpatient palliative care clinic brings about value addition in rapid diagnosis. Limiting POCUS application to certain selected sub-specialities such as emergency medicine, internal medicine and critical care medicine should be overcome. This would need acquiring higher training as well as improvised skill sets to perform bedside interventions. Ultrasonography competency among palliative care providers proposed as palliative medicine point-of-care ultrasound (PM-POCUS) could be achieved by imparting dedicated POCUS training within the core curriculum.

A systematic review and quality analysis of cancer pain guidelines.

Background and Aims: Cancer pain guidelines remain confined due to implementation barriers, preventing them from attaining a global perspective. The guidelines must be robust in development and inculcate high-quality content to achieve practical utility. Quality indicators related to safe opioid practice empower effective guideline implementation. Methods: The protocol was registered prospectively in PROSPERO (CRD42021244823). Guidelines published over the last decade providing insights into cancer pain management and incorporating safe opioid practice were evaluated. The review's primary outcome was to evaluate the quality of cancer pain guidelines. Appraisal of guidelines for research and evaluation II (AGREE II) instrument was used to assess a guideline's quality. The ADAPTE collaboration-guideline adaptation resource tool kit (ADAPTE) provided insights into its adaptation based on specific questions within the guideline. Results: Fourteen cancer pain guidelines met the eligibility criteria and were included for quality evaluation. Eight guidelines were evaluated with combined AGREE II and ADAPTE process, attaining >66.7% in the rigour of development domain score, summated scaled domain score, and specific ADAPTE tools to evaluate the quality of each guideline. The intra-class correlation coefficient was utilised for resolving inter-rater agreement. 'Safe opioid practice' within a guideline was assessed for quality content implementation. Conclusion: Combined AGREE II and ADAPTE identified four cancer pain guidelines, namely Ministry of Health Malaysia, National Comprehensive Cancer Network, NCEC-National Clinical Guideline, and World Health Organization, which were of the highest quality and incorporated safe opioid practice effectively.

Multimodal opioid sparing onco-anesthesia: A consensus practice guideline from Society of Onco-Anesthesia and Perioperative Care (SOAPC).

Opioids are an indispensable part of perioperative pain management of cancer surgeries. Opioids do have some side effects and abuse potential, and some laboratory data suggest a possible association of cancer recurrence with perioperative opioid use. Opioid-free anesthesia and opioid-sparing anesthesia are emerging new concepts worldwide to safeguard patients from adverse effects of opioids and potential abuse. Opioid-free anesthesia could lead to ineffective pain management, leaving the perioperative physician with limited options, while opioid-sparing anesthesia may be a rational approach. This consensus guideline includes general considerations of the safe use of perioperative opioids along with concomitant use of central neuraxial or regional blockade and systematic nonopioid analgesics. Region-specific onco-surgeries with their specific recommendations and consensus statements for judicious use of opioids are suggested. Use of epidural analgesia or regional catheter during thoracic, abdominal, pelvic, and lower limb surgeries and use of regional nerve blocks/catheter in head neck, neuro, and upper limb onco-surgeries, wherever possible along with nonopioids analgesics, are suggested. Short-acting opioids in small aliquots may be allowed to control breakthrough pain for expedient control of pain. The purpose of this consensus practice guideline is to provide the practicing anesthesiologists with best practice evidence and consensus recommendations by the expert committee of the Society of Onco-Anesthesia and Perioperative Care for safe opioid use in onco-surgeries.

Comparison of Blood-Conserving and Allogenic Transfusion-Sparing Effects of Antifibrinolytics in Scoliosis Correction Surgery.

BACKGROUND: Intraoperative antifibrinolytic drug administration is a safe and effective method of reducing blood loss and allogenic transfusions in patients undergoing spine deformity correction. AIM: This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of two antifibrinolytic drugs tranexamic acid (TXA) and epsilon amino caproic acid (EACA) in reducing peri-operative blood loss and transfusion requirements against a placebo control in patients with idiopathic scoliosis undergoing correction surgery. SETTING AND DESIGN: This is a prospective, randomized, double-blinded, controlled comparative study. METHODOLOGY: Patients in TXA group received 50 mg.kg-1 bolus and 10 mg.kg-1.h-1 infusion as against 100 mg.kg-1 and 10 mg.kg-1.h-1 infusion in EACA group. The placebo group had saline bolus and infusion. Parameters observed included baseline demographic and deformity data, duration of surgery, total peri-operative blood loss, and allogenic packed red cell transfusion requirements. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: Mean and standard deviation were used to represent the quantitative continuous data, and percentage was used to represent categorical data. The Student's t-test and ANOVA were used to compare means between groups. Bonferroni's multiple comparison test was used to find out the association between categorical variables. RESULTS: A total of 36 patients were enrolled with 12 patients in each group. Peri-operative blood loss was 50.1% lower in patients receiving TXA and 17.7% lower in patients receiving EACA compared with the placebo group. The volume of total packed red cell transfusion was 66.7% lower in patients receiving TXA and 45.6% lower in patients receiving EACA compared with placebo. CONCLUSION: TXA was more effective in reducing total peri-operative blood loss and allogenic transfusion requirement in idiopathic scoliosis correction surgery compared to EACA.

Opioid free onco-anesthesia: Is it time to convict opioids? A systematic review of literature.

The epidemic of opioid crisis started getting recognised as a public health emergency in view of increasing opioid-related deaths occurring due to undetected respiratory depression. Prescribing opioids at discharge has become an independent risk factor for chronic opioid use, following which, prescription practices have undergone a radical change. A call to action has been voiced recently to end the opioid epidemic although with the pain practitioners still struggling to make opioids readily available. American Society of Anesthesiologist (ASA) has called for reducing patient exposure to opioids in the surgical setting. Opioid sparing strategies have emerged embracing loco-regional techniques and non-opioid based multimodal pain management whereas opioid free anesthesia is the combination of various opioid sparing strategies culminating in complete elimination of opioid usage. The movement away from opioid usage perioperatively is a massive but necessary shift in anesthesia which has rationalised perioperative opioid usage. Ideal way moving forward would be to adapt selective low opioid effective dosing which is both procedure and patient specific while reserving it as rescue analgesia, postoperatively. Many unknowns persist in the domain of immunologic effects of opioids, as complex interplay of factors gets associated during real time surgery towards outcome. At present it would be too premature to conclude upon opioid-induced immunosuppression from the existing evidence. Till evidence is established, there are no recommendations to change current clinical practice. At the same time, consideration for multimodal opioid sparing strategies should be initiated in each patient undergoing surgery.

Ultrasound-guided Combined Fascial Plane Blocks as an Intervention for Pain Management after Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy: A Randomized Control Study.

BACKGROUND: Pain associated with laparoscopic cholecystectomy is most severe during the first 24 h and the port sites are the most painful. Recent multimodal approaches target incisional pain instead of visceral pain which has led to the emergence of abdominal fascial plane blocks. This study embraces a novel combination of two independently effective fascial plane blocks, namely rectus sheath block and subcostal transversus abdominis plane (TAP) block to alleviate postoperative pain. STUDY OBJECTIVE: The aim is to evaluate the effectiveness of the combination of rectus sheath block and subcostal TAP block, to compare its efficacy with that of subcostal TAP block alone and with conventional port site infiltration (PSI) in alleviating postoperative pain in patients undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy. METHODOLOGY: This prospective, randomized control, pilot study included 61 patients scheduled for elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy and distributed among three groups, namely Group 1: Combined subcostal TAP block with rectus sheath block (n = 20); Group 2: Oblique subcostal TAP block alone (n = 21); and Group 3: PSI group as an active control (n = 20). RESULTS: Combined group had significantly lower pain scores, higher satisfaction scores, and reduced rescue analgesia both in early and late postoperative periods than the conventional PSI group. CONCLUSION: Ultrasound-guided combined fascial plane blocks is a novel intervention in pain management of patients undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy and should become the standard of care.

BIS Targeted Propofol Sparing Effects of Dexmedetomidine Versus Ketamine in Outpatient ERCP: A Prospective Randomised Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND: Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangio Pancreatography (ERCP) is routinely performed under propofol sedation. Adjuvant drugs have improved the quality of propofol sedation while minimizing complications. The aim of the study was to compare the propofol consumption, recovery and hemodynamic profiles of dexmedetomidine versus ketamine against a placebo control with BIS targeted in the sedative range for outpatient ERCP procedures. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study comprised of 72 patients undergoing ERCP, who were randomly allocated into one of the 3 groups: Group Dexmedetomidine (n =24) receiving a bolus and infusion of dexmedetomidine (1µg/kg and 0.5µg/kg/hr); Group Ketamine (n = 24) receiving a bolus and infusion of ketamine (0.25mg/kg and 5µg/kg/min) and Group Control (n =24) receiving saline placebo as a bolus and infusion with variable propofol boluses administered in all groups targeting BiSpectral Index between 60-70. RESULTS: The total propofol consumption was significantly lower in both Dexmedetomidine (162.5 ± 71.7 mg ) and Ketamine groups (158.3 ± 66.89 mg) when compared with Control group (255.83 ± 114.12 mg)(p=0.001) .Time taken (minutes) to achieve Modified Aldrette Score (MAS) >9 and Observer Assessment of Alertness and Sedation (OAAS) score >4 was significantly prolonged in Dexmedetomidine group (MAS 16.6 ± 3.18 and OAAS 16.67 ± 2.82) compared to Ketamine (MAS 10 ± 4.17 and OAAS 8.75 ± 3.68) and Control (MAS 7.5 ± 3.29 and OAAS 6.88 ± 2.47) (p<0.001). Hemodynamic profiles were comparable although patients in dexmedetomidine had a statistically significant lower heart rate (p<0.001) although without clinical significance. CONCLUSION: Low dose ketamine with background propofol boluses resulted in lesser propofol consumption, with earlier recovery and favourable hemodynamics when compared with Dexmedetomidine and control group in outpatient ERCP.