Pain Relief at Iliac Crest Bone Harvest Sites in Spine Surgery Using Bupivacaine

Summary

The use of iliac crest bone graft (ICBG) remains the gold-standard in spinal reconstructive surgery for achieving fusion. Major complications from the harvesting of ICBG are rare, but chronic pain has been reported in 10-39%. Catheters implanted at the time of surgery have been used to provide local anesthetic at the harvest site for 24-48 hours after surgery. This has been shown to decrease chronic pain at 4 years post-operatively. A single application of local anesthetic at surgery has been shown to decrease pain at the harvest site for up to 5 days. No study has demonstrated a benefit to using a single application of local anesthetic at the ICBG site beyond 5 days. In current clinical practice, the use of a local anesthetic at the ICBG site is determined according to surgeon preference. The purpose of this study is to determine if a single application of bupivacaine at the ICBG site, as currently done in some cases, provides any pain relief beyond 5 days such as that demonstrated with longer infusions of local anesthetics.

Timeline

Start

2010-04

Primary completion

2011-10

Completion

2011-10

Publications

• Results O'Neill KR, Lockney DT, Bible JE, Crosby CG, Devin CJ. Bupivacaine for pain reduction after iliac crest bone graft harvest. Orthopedics. 2014 May;37(5):e428-34. doi: 10.3928/01477447-20140430-52.

Drugs

Indications

No indication recorded.