Erector Spinae Plane Blockade in Pediatric Scoliosis Surgery Patients

Pediatric Scoliosis Surgery: Enhanced Recovery With Erector Spinae Plane Blockade Utilizing Surgically Placed Catheters

Providing effective analgesia after spinal fusion for idiopathic scoliosis remains a challenge with significant practice variation existing among high volume spine surgery centers. Even in the era of multimodal analgesia, opioids are the primary analgesics used for pain control after pediatric scoliosis surgery, but have multiple known adverse effects. The erector spinae plane block (ESPB) is a newly described fascial plane block performed by injecting local anesthetic between the erector spinae muscle and the transverse process. Additionally, there are case reports describing the ESPB as part of a multi-modal analgesic plan in adult degenerative spine surgery as well as adult spinal deformity surgery, demonstrating effective analgesia and no clinical motor blockade. Although it is known that the inflammatory reaction plays a crucial role in the mechanism of acute pain after major surgery, the effectiveness of the current regional approach on inflammatory response is not well studied.

Patients will receive an erector spinae plane blockade prior to their surgery as per standard regional anesthesia technique.

Patients will receive the standard of care for pediatric scoliosis surgery including multi-modal opioid pain management. If the patient declines to consent to enrollment into the randomized study, patients may still participate by allowing prospective data and samples collection/analysis with respect to perioperative choice.

The ESPB is fascial plane block performed by injecting local anesthetic between the erector spinae muscle and the transverse process. Its proposed mechanism of action is via blockade of the dorsal and ventral rami of the thoracic spinal nerves and sympathetic fibers.

Determine if bilateral surgical placed ESPBs will decrease length of stay in the pediatric ICU and the hospital. LOS and decrease postoperative opioid consumption.)

Determine if bilateral surgical placed ESPBs will decrease postoperative opioid consumption measured in Morphine Milligram Equivalents (MME)

Patients will be asked on a daily basis by the research staff to report pain scores on a scale of 1-10 (1 signifying no pain to 10 signifying the worse pain).

Inpatient postoperative mobility will be tracked using activity tracker accelerometers and subsequently compared between the two groups.

Inclusion Criteria: ASA I-III Diagnosed with Idiopathic scoliosis Undergoing single-stage posterior spinal instrumentation and fusion Exclusion Criteria: Thorascopic tethering procedure Two-stage procedure Abnormal developmental profile Congenital/neuromuscular scoliosis Requiring PICU admission Known allergy to lidocaine Known cardiac, renal or liver disease or dysfunction Pre-existing pain complaints, i.e. on regular analgesic medications Current psychiatric diagnosis, e.g. anxiety, depression, eating disorder, defined according to DSM criteria. Requiring non-standard post-op pain management Any history of seizures Unplanned staged procedure Weight < 5th centile or > 85th centile for age Porphyria

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