Programmed Intermittent Bolus Dosing Versus Continuous Epidural Infusion for Epidural Analgesia in Abdominal Surgery.

University of California San Francisco (UCSF)

Status and phase: Completed; Phase 4

Conditions: Pain, Acute

Treatments: Drug: Fentanyl; Drug: Bupivacaine

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03307174

15-18354

Details and patient eligibility

About

Epidurals are an effective means for providing neuraxial anesthesia and analgesia. Prior studies in labor epidurals have demonstrated that a programmed intermittent bolus application of local anesthesia can improve pain control by reducing the amount of local anesthetic required as well as improve patient satisfaction when compared to continuous epidural infusions. The effects of programmed intermittent bolus of epidural local anesthetics compared to continuous epidural infusions in a surgical setting have yet to be elucidated. Our goal is to evaluate the use of programmed intermittent bolus compared to continuous epidural infusion in a surgical patient population. We plan to enroll patients already undergoing abdominal surgeries including colorectal, gynecologic, surgical oncology, urological where epidural anesthesia can be employed. The primary endpoints of the study will be the total local anesthetic consumption and total opioid consumption as surrogate markers for the quality of epidural anesthesia. Secondary endpoints are pain scores and functional measurements, patient satisfaction, and incidence of hypotension.

Full description

See brief summary

Enrollment: 120 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• American Society of Anesthesia physical classification I - III, scheduled for surgery with anticipated an epidural anesthesia (including but not limited to colorectal, surgical oncology, urology, gynecology) as part of their perioperative treatment

Exclusion criteria

• Age younger than 18 years of age, non-English speaking, contraindication for neuraxial anesthesia (such as, but not limited to coagulopathy, infection at site, allergy to local anesthetic), preexisting neurologic deficits, inability to consent due to cognitive dysfunction, patients with pain numeric rating score > 5 each day for greater than 3 months, daily opioid consumption > 100 oral morphine equivalents for 14 consecutive days prior to surgery, patient refusal.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

---

120 participants in 2 patient groups

Continuous epidural infusion

Active Comparator group

Description:

At our institution, the most commonly utilized form of administration of medication through an epidural (our active comparator/control) is as follows: Combination of 0.0625% bupivacaine with 2mcg/ml of fentanyl infused at a constant rate of 8ml/hr. The patient has the ability to self administer patient controlled epidural analgesia of 2ml of the epidural medication with a lock out period of 15 min. The total maximum volume of epidural medication each hour is 16ml. These settings are managed and controlled by a epidural medication pump. Additional oral and intravenous analgesia medications are available as scheduled and pro re nata.

Treatment:

Drug: Bupivacaine

Drug: Fentanyl

Programmed intermittent epidural bolus

Experimental group

Description:

For the programmed intermittent epidural bolus group: Combination of 0.0625% bupivacaine with 2mcg/ml of fentanyl will be administered as a bolus of 4ml every 30 minutes. The patient has the ability to self administer patient controlled epidural analgesia of 2ml of the epidural medication with a lock out period of 10 min. The total maximum volume of epidural medication each hour is 16ml. These settings are managed and controlled by a epidural medication pump. Additional oral and intravenous analgesia medications are available as scheduled and pro re nata.

Treatment:

Drug: Bupivacaine

Drug: Fentanyl