Mobius® Post-cesarean Pain Randomized Control Trial

Abbey Hardy-Fairbanks

Status: Completed

Conditions: Complications; Cesarean Section; Pregnancy

Treatments: Device: Mobius Retractor

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Industry

Identifiers

NCT00685932

21107

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the use of the Mobius® retractor decreased post-operative pain after cesarean section verses conventional retractor use. Based on clinical experience and a pilot study, we suspect that the retractor will decrease overall pain as well as lateral pain.

Full description

This is a prospective, randomized, patient blinded trial of standard surgical retraction versus Mobius® retraction at cesarean delivery. Women will be approached by their provider at their 36 week prenatal visit regarding potential study participation. They will be given a letter describing the study. If a woman is interested, she will be contacted by a study nurse who will obtain informed consent. Ideally, women will be approached prior to the onset of labor or date of scheduled cesarean delivery so as to provide adequate time to review the study and ask questions. Women who undergo antenatal admission will be also approached by their provider regarding possible study participation and given a recruitment letter. If they are interested, then a study nurse will obtain informed consent.

Consenting women will be randomized after the decision to deliver by cesarean section is made. Randomization will be performed in blocks to control for scheduled versus unscheduled cesarean deliveries using a random numbers generator. Assignments will be kept in sequentially number opaque envelopes. Women will not be informed of their assignment until after discharge from the hospital. Efforts will be made in the operating room to avoid disclosing group assignment and the consent forms will not contain the specific name of the retractor under study. The operative team will be aware of group assignment.

Participants will complete a 7 item pain scale each post-operative day until discharge. This pain scale has been used in a pilot study and found to be accurate. The pain scale is a single page and takes less than 5 minutes to complete.

Charts will be reviewed to obtain clinical information which may have an impact on post-operative pain. This includes information about current and past substance abuse. Because of the increased amounts of post-operative pain experienced by women who use methadone during pregnancy, this group of women will be excluded from the study. To protect the information regarding substance abuse, a certificate of confidentiality has been obtained from the NIH.

Enrollment: 154 patients

Sex: Female

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Over 18 years old
• Potential for having a cesarean section (scheduled or unscheduled) at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center

Exclusion criteria

• Less than 18 years old
• Unable to consent due to language barrier or psychiatric illness
• Current methadone use for chronic pain
• Stat cesarean section

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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154 participants in 2 patient groups

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

This arm will be randomly assigned to have conventional retractions (ie Rich retractors and similar) used in the usual fashion during the cesarean procedure.

Mobius

Experimental group

Description:

This arm will be randomized to have the providers who are performing the cesarean section use the Mobius retractor during the cesarean section procedure after the peritoneal cavity is opened.

Treatment:

Device: Mobius Retractor