Ultrasound-Guided Block of the Lateral Femoral Cutaneous Nerve in Pediatric Patients

Mass General Brigham

Status: Completed

Conditions: Burns

Treatments: Procedure: Catheter; Procedure: Regional nerve block

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01500655

2008P001944

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to determine whether either a peripheral nerve block under ultrasound (u/s) guidance of the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve (LFCN), versus an u/s guided block of the nerve followed by continuous catheter infusion of local anesthetic, offers better post-operative analgesia in pediatric burn patients undergoing reconstructive surgery, than the current analgesic regimen of subcutaneous local anesthetic infiltration.

Eligible subject, pediatric patients having reconstructive surgery for burns, having skin graft donor sites of the lateral thighs, will be randomized into three groups: control (having local infiltration of site), ultrasound guided nerve block, or ultrasound guided nerve block with catheter placement --fascia iliac.

Post-operative comfort will be assessed over the next 48 hours.

Enrollment: 19 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 2 to 21 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• going for reconstructive surgery requiring split thickness skin graft
• patient's donor site will be in distribution of lateral femoral cutaneous nerve
• age >=2 and <22
• patient emotionally/intellectually able to describe intensity of post-op pain using VAS or Wong- Baker faces scale.

Exclusion criteria

• potential block/catheter site infected or burned.
• intolerance/allergy to local anesthetics
• BMI > 30
• American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score > 2

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Factorial Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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19 participants in 3 patient groups

Catheter

Experimental group

Description:

An ultrasound guided block of the LFCN is performed, followed by the placement of a catheter underneath the fascia iliaca.

Treatment:

Procedure: Catheter

Procedure: Regional nerve block

Ultrasound guided LFCN block

Experimental group

Description:

An ultrasound guided regional nerve block --using ropivacaine 0.2%-- will be performed around the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve (LFCN).

Treatment:

Procedure: Regional nerve block

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

This group gets the current standard of care--the donor site is infiltrated with 0.25% bupivacaine.