Epidural vs. Wound Catheter Following Liver Resection

The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

Status: Completed

Conditions: Transplant Surgery

Treatments: Procedure: This arm will received perioperative transversus abdominis plane (TAP) block followed by continuous infusion of local anaestheic by wound catheters and an IV morphine PCA.

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03638401

RL14/11048

Details and patient eligibility

About

Good postoperative pain control after any major surgery allows early mobilization, minimises postoperative complications and reduces patient distress. Multiple different methods of delivering analgesia have been described.

This study aims to compare postoperative pain control between patients with epidural analgesia versus the combination of continuous infiltration of local anaesthetic with wound catheters, TAP block and IV PCA with opiate analgesia following open liver resection. The investigators expect that pain control will be similar between the two groups but that the utilization of wound catheters will confer benefit due to the lack of systemic side effects associated with epidural analgesia

Enrollment: 80 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 100 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• All adult patients scheduled to undergo an open liver resection at this hospital will be eligible to participate.

Exclusion criteria

• Patients with a contraindication to either epidural or wound catheter
• Inability to give written, informed consent
• Aged less than 18 years old
• Liver resection combined with a secondary surgical procedure
• Body mass index of <18 or >40
• Pregnancy or lactation
• A history of chronic pain requiring regular opioid analgesia
• Prisoners

Trial design

80 participants in 2 patient groups

Standard treatment

No Intervention group

Intervention arm

Active Comparator group

Treatment:

Procedure: This arm will received perioperative transversus abdominis plane (TAP) block followed by continuous infusion of local anaestheic by wound catheters and an IV morphine PCA.