Pain Relief Durations of Different Concentrations of Lidocaine in Wide Awake Hand Surgery: A Prospective Randomised...

This study aims to determine the minimal concentration of lidocaine to provide adequate analgesia in wide awake local anaesthesia no tourniquet (WALANT) hand surgeries comparing 3 dilutions of tumescent lidocaine with epinephrine solution.

A randomised control trial. Place and Duration of the Study: The study was held at the Plastic Surgery Department of Mayo Hospital, Lahore, from September 2020 to March 2021.

Inclusion criteria were post-traumatic hand contractures and tendon and nerve injuries. The patients were randomised to 3 groups of 30 each: Group A (0.1% lidocaine), Group B (0.2% lidocaine), and Group C (0.3% lidocaine). The dilution of adrenaline also remained constant at 1:200,000. Pain was measured using the Visual Analogue Scale. The three groups were compared for demographics and the total duration of analgesia in minutes.

All groups showed adequate pain relief during surgery with no cases requiring conversion to general anaesthesia. The highest total duration of analgesia was seen in the 0.3% group (805.3±195.2 minutes), followed by the 0.2% group (500.4±87.2 minutes) and 0.1% group (381.3±31.6 minutes) (p<0.05). No patient developed any signs of lidocaine toxicity. A low Lidocaine concentration of 0.1% was effective in providing analgesia during surgery though increasing the lidocaine concentration to 0.3% would result in greater post-operative analgesic time without increasing toxicity.

Adequate analgesia was recorded with all 3 lidocaine concentrations. The greatest pain-free duration was however observed in the  0.3% lidocaine group.

Wide awake local anaesthesia no tourniquet (WALANT), Lidocaine concentrations, Hand surgery, Analgesia, Adverse effects.