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Updated: Dec 7, 2025

Collecting And Measuring Wound Exudate Biochemical Mediators In Surgical Wounds
Published on: October 20, 2012
LAW Trial - The Impact of Local Anesthetics Infiltration in Surgical Wound for Gastrointestinal Procedures (LAW): A
Guillermo Ponce de León-Ballesteros1, Alejandro Ramírez-Del Val1, Gustavo Romero-Vélez2
1Department of Surgery, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubiran, Mexico City, Mexico.
Introduction And Aims:
Prior studies have suggested that infiltration of local anesthetics reduce the rate of surgical site infections (SSIs). Opioid usage has become an epidemic. Some analgesic modalities, such as epidural analgesia and transversus abdominis plane block are associated with shorter length of stay and lower opioid use. The aim of our study was to assess the relationship between local infiltration of bupivacaine with rates of SSI and pain control.
Materials And Methods:
We conducted a prospective, double-blinded randomized controlled trial in patients who underwent open major gastrointestinal procedures from July 2016 to June 2017. Patients were divided into two groups based on administration of 0.5% bupivacaine (n = 30) (group 1) or placebo (n = 30) (control group). Outcomes evaluated were SSI, postoperative opioid requirements and pain scores.
Results:
Patients in the bupivacaine group required a lower dose of epidural analgesia during the first 24 h (5.3 mcg/kg/h vs. 6.4 mcg/kg/h; p = 0.05). Opioid requirement was shorter in the bupivacaine group (3.5 ± 2.3 days vs. 5.7 ± 2.9 days; p = 0.01). No difference was found between groups in terms of SSI rates (0% vs. 6.7%, p = 0.49).
Conclusions:
There is no clear association between bupivacaine infiltration and reduction of SSI rate according to our study. Wound bupivacaine infiltration is associated with a lower dose of epidural infusion and opioid requirements.
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