Clinical study for skin graft donor site after regional thigh blockade

ABSTRACT

In general, split thickness skin graft was done under general anesthesia. However, there was a difficulty to do general anesthesia in some cases due to poor general condition. The lateral cutaneous nerve block of the thigh(LCNBT) anesthesia the usual donor site of split-thickness skin graft in the thigh. Using 10 ml of 0.5% bupivacaine, LCNBT was used thigh for harvesting split-thickness skin in 42 patients. Patients age ranged from 18 to 62 years with mean 49 years. The onset of full anesthesia took between 12 and 21 minutes. The area anesthetised ranged from 200 cm2to 940 cm2with mean 551 cm2. The duration of full anesthesia was from 6 to 16 hours. In 6 patients, LCNBT was compared with previous lidocaine local anesthesia and all patients preferred to do LCNBT. In our experience, LCNBT is a safe, and simple method for harvesting split-thickness from the thigh and LCNBT provided good postoperative analgesia.