Parecoxib as an Adjuvant to Scalp Nerve Blocks for Relief of Post-craniotomy Pain

Summary

Pain is common for the first 2 days after major craniotomy. Inadequate analgesia induced sympathetically mediated hypertension may lead to an increased risk for post-operative complications, such as arterial hypertension, intracranial hemorrhage, prolonged hospital stay, and mortality.Pain after craniotomy derives from the scalp and pericranial muscles.Scalp block with local anesthesia seems to provide effective and safe anesthetic management.Scalp block can be performed by directly blocking the six different nerves that provide the sensory innervation of the scalp in neurological surgery.Even if adrenaline as an additive agent, scalp block using 0.5% or 0.75% bupivacaine with adrenaline could only improve postoperative analgesic for up to six hours after craniotomy.However, pain is common for the first 2 days after major elective intracranial surgery, and the relatively short analgesic time of scalp nerve blocks does not seem to meet the requirements of craniotomy. Therefore, how to improve the quality and duration of scalp nerve blocks with local anesthetics is of great significance.Parecoxib is a NSAIDs that specifically inhibits the enzyme COX-2.Liu et al firstly applied parecoxib as an adjuvant to local anesthetics on peripheral nerve blocks and reported 20 mg parecoxib added to ropivacaine injected locally on the brachial plexus nerve prolonged the motor and sensory block times of the nerve blockade and ameliorated postoperative pain intensity for patients receiving forearm orthopaedic surgery. However, there has not been reported about local application of parecoxib on scalp nerve blocks. The investigators postulate that parecoxib may be also ideal for scalp nerve blocks for relief of post-craniotomy pain, and further research is needed. The APONIA trial aims to establish whether scalp blocks with a mixture of ropivacaine plus parecoxib is able to relieve patients' postoperative pain compared with local anesthetics alone, thereby potentially changing medical practice.

Timeline

Start

2019-10-12

Primary completion

2021-12-31

Completion

2021-12-31

Publications

• Background Gottschalk A, Berkow LC, Stevens RD, Mirski M, Thompson RE, White ED, Weingart JD, Long DM, Yaster M. Prospective evaluation of pain and analgesic use following major elective intracranial surgery. J Neurosurg. 2007 Feb;106(2):210-6. doi: 10.3171/jns.2007.106.2.210.
• Background Basali A, Mascha EJ, Kalfas I, Schubert A. Relation between perioperative hypertension and intracranial hemorrhage after craniotomy. Anesthesiology. 2000 Jul;93(1):48-54. doi: 10.1097/00000542-200007000-00012.
• Background Flexman AM, Ng JL, Gelb AW. Acute and chronic pain following craniotomy. Curr Opin Anaesthesiol. 2010 Oct;23(5):551-7. doi: 10.1097/ACO.0b013e32833e15b9.
• Background Dunn LK, Naik BI, Nemergut EC, Durieux ME. Post-Craniotomy Pain Management: Beyond Opioids. Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep. 2016 Oct;16(10):93. doi: 10.1007/s11910-016-0693-y.
• Background Chaki T, Sugino S, Janicki PK, Ishioka Y, Hatakeyama Y, Hayase T, Kaneuchi-Yamashita M, Kohri N, Yamakage M. Efficacy and Safety of a Lidocaine and Ropivacaine Mixture for Scalp Nerve Block and Local Infiltration Anesthesia in Patients Undergoing Awake Craniotomy. J Neurosurg Anesthesiol. 2016 Jan;28(1):1-5. doi: 10.1097/ANA.0000000000000149.
• Background Lee EJ, Lee MY, Shyr MH, Cheng JT, Toung TJ, Mirski MA, Chen TY. Adjuvant bupivacaine scalp block facilitates stabilization of hemodynamics in patients undergoing craniotomy with general anesthesia: a preliminary report. J Clin Anesth. 2006 Nov;18(7):490-4. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinane.2006.02.014.
• Background Nguyen A, Girard F, Boudreault D, Fugere F, Ruel M, Moumdjian R, Bouthilier A, Caron JL, Bojanowski MW, Girard DC. Scalp nerve blocks decrease the severity of pain after craniotomy. Anesth Analg. 2001 Nov;93(5):1272-6. doi: 10.1097/00000539-200111000-00048.
• Background Bala I, Gupta B, Bhardwaj N, Ghai B, Khosla VK. Effect of scalp block on postoperative pain relief in craniotomy patients. Anaesth Intensive Care. 2006 Apr;34(2):224-7. doi: 10.1177/0310057X0603400203.
• Background Romsing J, Moiniche S. A systematic review of COX-2 inhibitors compared with traditional NSAIDs, or different COX-2 inhibitors for post-operative pain. Acta Anaesthesiol Scand. 2004 May;48(5):525-46. doi: 10.1111/j.0001-5172.2004.00379.x.
• Background Romsing J, Moiniche S, Ostergaard D, Dahl JB. Local infiltration with NSAIDs for postoperative analgesia: evidence for a peripheral analgesic action. Acta Anaesthesiol Scand. 2000 Jul;44(6):672-83. doi: 10.1034/j.1399-6576.2000.440607.x.
• Background Koppert W, Wehrfritz A, Korber N, Sittl R, Albrecht S, Schuttler J, Schmelz M. The cyclooxygenase isozyme inhibitors parecoxib and paracetamol reduce central hyperalgesia in humans. Pain. 2004 Mar;108(1-2):148-53. doi: 10.1016/j.pain.2003.12.017.
• Background Williams DL, Pemberton E, Leslie K. Effect of intravenous parecoxib on post-craniotomy pain. Br J Anaesth. 2011 Sep;107(3):398-403. doi: 10.1093/bja/aer223.
• Background Liu X, Zhao X, Lou J, Wang Y, Shen X. Parecoxib added to ropivacaine prolongs duration of axillary brachial plexus blockade and relieves postoperative pain. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2013 Feb;471(2):562-8. doi: 10.1007/s11999-012-2691-y. Epub 2012 Nov 21.
• Background Krauss P, Marahori NA, Oertel MF, Barth F, Stieglitz LH. Better Hemodynamics and Less Antihypertensive Medication: Comparison of Scalp Block and Local Infiltration Anesthesia for Skull-Pin Placement in Awake Deep Brain Stimulation Surgery. World Neurosurg. 2018 Dec;120:e991-e999. doi: 10.1016/j.wneu.2018.08.210. Epub 2018 Sep 7.

Drugs

Indications