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The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, Vol 46, 425-426, Copyright © 1988 by The Society of Thoracic Surgeons

ARTICLES

Continuous intercostal nerve block for pain relief after thoracotomy

S Sabanathan, PJ Smith, GN Pradhan, H Hashimi, JB Eng and AJ Mearns
Department of Thoracic Surgery, Bradford Royal Infirmary, England.

Others have demonstrated the effectiveness of intercostal analgesia with bupivacaine hydrochloride (Marcain Plain; Astra). We present a greatly simplified method of effecting this. Our method is dependent on an intact pleura. To date, we have utilized this technique in 81 patients. Seventy-five (92.6%) required no additional analgesic in the first 24 hours following operation and 66 (81.5%), in the subsequent four days. Only 2 patients had postoperative pulmonary complications. No complication related either to the procedure or to the infusion of bupivacaine occurred. The technique as described here is a safe and reliable method of providing analgesia without any side effects after thoracotomy.

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