The efficacy of the ON-Q elastomeric pump system in post-thoracotomy acute pain control

We aimed to evaluate the efficacy of continuous local anesthetic infusion to the incision site with the On-Q elastomeric pump system in postoperative acute pain control after thoracotomy.

A retrospective comparative analysis of of sixty patients who underwent thoracotomy for lung cancer by the same surgical team was performed between January 2016 and December 2017. The patients were divided into two groups according to postoperative pain management, those who were traditionally received tramadolol (15 mg/h) by intravenous continuous infusion (Group IVT, n = 30) and those who were administered continuous local anesthetic (0.5% bupivacaine, 4 ml/h) infusion to the incision site through an elastomeric pump in addition to the traditional treatment (Group LA, n = 30). The primary outcomes were postoperative acute pain scores on the numeric rating scale and postoperative rescue opioid consumption for 72 hours following surgery reported as pethidine equivalents. The secondary outcomes were frequency of analgesia related adverse events/complications, ICU and hospital stay, drug and total hospital cost.

The mean pain scores at 2, 12, 24, 48 and 72^th hours at rest and during coughing were found to be significantly lower in group LA (p < 0.05). Rescue opioid consumption on postoperative 0, 1, 2 and 3^rd days and in total was found to be significantly lower in Group LA (p < 0.05). In Group LA, postoperative length of hospital stay was significantly shorter (5.8 ± 2.1 days vs. 8.0 ± 3.1 days; p = 0.034), drug costs (95.24 vs. 160.08 Euro; p = 0.023) and total hospital costs were lower (434.26 vs. 685.75 Euro; p = 0.014) than Group IVT.

We believe that continuous local anesthetic infusion to the incision site in addition to systemic analgesic treatment for multimodal acute pain management after thoracotomy is an effective and safe method.