Preventive Skin Analgesia With Lidocaine Patch 5% for Controlling Post-thoracotomy Pain

Summary

Thoracotomy is one of the most painful surgical incision. Uncontrolled acute post-thoracotomy pain reducing deep breathing exercises and secretion clearance increased the incidence of postoperative pulmonary complications including atelectasis, hypoxemia, and postoperative pulmonary infections. Thus, an effective analgesia is crucial in order to reduce perioperative morbidity and hospitalization time and also to prevent chronic post-thoracotomy pain. Thoracic epidural analgesia and thoracic paravertebral analgesia are currently the standard strategies for thoracic surgery but the difficult of performing them in all patients and their potential complications are all factors that limit their use. Systemic administration of opioids is the simplest and common strategy to provide analgesia but it may be associated with several undesirable effects, such as respiratory depression, sedation, nausea, constipation and vomiting. In the recent years, preventive analgesia is become one of the most promising strategy of postoperative pain control. It is based on the concept of administering analgesic drugs before the occurrence of nociceptive input in order to prevent central sensitization. The efficacy of preemptive analgesia is unclear and there is no a consensus on its efficacy on controlling pain after thoracic procedure. Pain following thoracotomy has a multifactorial genesis including surgical incision, intercostal nerve injury, pleural inflammation, and damage of pulmonary parenchyma and of diaphragm. Thus, a multimodal analgesia that intercepts the signalizing at numerous locations could be more effective than a single strategy targeting one site along the pain pathway. Thus, in the present study, the clinical hypothesis was that the preemptive analgesia of the skin using a new tool as the Lidocaine patch 5% would improve the analgesic effects of systemic morphine analgesia for controlling post-operative pain following thoracotomy.

Timeline

Start

2013-01

Primary completion

2015-05

Completion

2015-12

Publications

• Background Cerfolio RJ, Bryant AS, Bass CS, Bartolucci AA. A prospective, double-blinded, randomized trial evaluating the use of preemptive analgesia of the skin before thoracotomy. Ann Thorac Surg. 2003 Oct;76(4):1055-8. doi: 10.1016/s0003-4975(03)01023-3.
• Background Garzon-Rodriguez C, Casals Merchan M, Calsina-Berna A, Lopez-Romboli E, Porta-Sales J. Lidocaine 5 % patches as an effective short-term co-analgesic in cancer pain. Preliminary results. Support Care Cancer. 2013 Nov;21(11):3153-8. doi: 10.1007/s00520-013-1948-7. Epub 2013 Sep 3.
• Background Vrooman B, Kapural L, Sarwar S, Mascha EJ, Mihaljevic T, Gillinov M, Qavi S, Sessler DI. Lidocaine 5% Patch for Treatment of Acute Pain After Robotic Cardiac Surgery and Prevention of Persistent Incisional Pain: A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled, Double-Blind Trial. Pain Med. 2015 Aug;16(8):1610-21. doi: 10.1111/pme.12721. Epub 2015 Jul 14.
• Background Habib AS, Polascik TJ, Weizer AZ, White WD, Moul JW, ElGasim MA, Gan TJ. Lidocaine patch for postoperative analgesia after radical retropubic prostatectomy. Anesth Analg. 2009 Jun;108(6):1950-3. doi: 10.1213/ane.0b013e3181a21185.
• Background Cheng YJ. Lidocaine Skin Patch (Lidopat(R) 5%) Is Effective in the Treatment of Traumatic Rib Fractures: A Prospective Double-Blinded and Vehicle-Controlled Study. Med Princ Pract. 2016;25(1):36-9. doi: 10.1159/000441002. Epub 2015 Nov 6.

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