ABSTRACT
Persistent poststernotomy pain (PSP) is a well?known entity following cardiac surgery done with midline strenotomy. The severity of pain is usually mild to moderate in the majority of the patients. However, a small percentage of patients develop severe and persistent pain and need aggressive treatment. Our patient, a 63?year?old lady developed chronic severe parasternal pain following coronary artery bypass graft surgery. As multiple medications did not relieve her pain effectively, we did an ultrasound?guided pectoral?intercostal fascial plane block to which she responded with excellent and long?lasting pain relief. This is the first such case report of the use of this novel block technique for treating PSP.
ABSTRACT
Objective To examine the impact of vacuum sealing drainage on clinical outcomes of patients with post-sternotomy mediastinitis after cardiac surgery. Methods A systematic search were performed in Cochrane Library, Pubmed, Embase, China Biology Medicine(CBM), WanFang, VIP database. The quality of articles was critically appraised and data were extracted by 2 reviewers independently. Meta-analysis were conducted for the eligible researches. Results Fourteen cohort studies were inclued finally. Patients treated with VSD had significantly lower in-hospital mortalityand lower re-infection compared to those treated without VSD. While there had no significant defferences in length of ICU stay(days) and in-hospital stay (days) between VSD group and control group. Conclusions VSD therapy was associated with lower re-infection and in-hospital mortality than other conventional methods in patients with post-sternotomy mediastinitis after cardiac surgery and those results should be further tested in future research and practice.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Magnesium is one of the effective, safe local anesthetic adjuvants that can exert an analgesic effect in conditions presenting acute and chronic post-sternotomy pain. We studied the efficacy of continuous infusion of presternal magnesium sulfate with bupivacaine for pain relief following cardiac surgery. METHODS: Ninety adult patients undergoing valve replacement cardiac surgery randomly allocated into three groups. In all patients; a presternal catheter was placed for continuous infusion of either 0.125% bupivacaine and 5% magnesium sulfate (3 ml/h for 48 hours) in group 1, or 0.125% bupivacaine only in the same rate in group 2, versus conventional intravenous paracetamol and ketorolac in group 3. Rescue analgesia was iv 25 µg fentanyl. Postoperative Visual Analog Scale (VAS) and fentanyl consumption during the early two postoperative days were assessed. All patients were followed up over two months for occurrence of chronic post-sternotomy pain. RESULTS: VAS values showed high significant differences during the first 48 hours with the least pain scale in group 1 and significantly least fentanyl consumption (30.8 ± 7 µg in group 1 vs. 69 ± 18 µg in group 2, and 162 ± 3 in group 3 respectively). The incidence of chronic pain has not differed between the three groups although it was more pronounced in group 3. CONCLUSIONS: Continuous presternal bupivacaine and magnesium infusion resulted in better postoperative analgesia than both presternal bupivacaine alone or conventional analgesic groups.