Pain management after pneumothorax surgery: intercostal nerve block or thoracic epidural analgesia

In patients undergoing video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery for pneumothorax, the benefits and risks of single-shot intercostal nerve block as loco-regional analgesia are not well known. We retrospectively compared the effectiveness of intercostal nerve blocks as a viable alternative to thoracic epidural analgesia (TEA) regarding pain control and enhanced recovery.

A retrospective multicentre analysis with single-centre propensity score matching was performed in patients undergoing video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery for pneumothorax receiving either TEA or intercostal nerve block. The primary outcome was a proportion of pain scores ≥4 (scale 0-10) until postoperative day (POD) 3. Secondary outcomes included variation in pain over time, additional opioid use, length of stay, mobility, complications and recurrence rate.

In 218 patients, TEA was compared to intercostal nerve block and showed no difference in the proportion of pain scores ≥4 {14.3% [interquartile range (IQR) 0.0-33.3] vs 11.1% (IQR 0.0-27.3) respectively, P = 0.24}, more frequently needed additional opioids on the day of surgery (18% vs 48%) and first POD (20% vs 42%), had a shorter length of stay (4.0 days [IQR 3.0-7.0] vs 3.0 days [IQR 2.8-4.0]) and were significantly more mobile until POD 3, while having similar recurrences. Intercostal nerve block had higher pain scores early in the course whereas TEA had higher late (rebound) pain scores.

In a multimodal analgesic setting with additional opioids, intercostal nerve block shows comparable moments of unacceptable pain from POD 0-3 compared to TEA and is linked to improved mobility. Results require randomized confirmation.