Erector Spinae Block for Thoracic Surgery

The research hypothesis for the ESB Thoracic study is that erector spinae blocks with boluses of bupivacaine infusions will decrease patients' postsurgical pain, and thereby decrease the amount of narcotic pain medication used. This will be of particular use in patients who have an anticoagulation need and are not able to receive more invasive nerve blocks.To achieve appropriate exposure for pulmonary resection surgery, whether open or video-assisted, patients have surgical incision in the lateral thoracic region, including disruption to the tributaries of the spinal nerves. Due to this dissection, patients frequently experience significant pain post-operatively. Erector spinae blocks with bupivacaine or ropivacaine with bolus infusion therapy have been shown to treat this spinal nerve pain effectively in rib fractures, thoracoscopic surgeries, and breast surgeries. However, there have been no definitive studies evaluating the effectiveness of erector spinae blocks in postoperative pulmonary resection surgery patients.

It is expected that patients with erector spinae blocks (ESB) will have lower pain visual analogue scores (VAS) and lower total opioid consumption. Learning more about the effectiveness of ESB can help in providing adjunct therapy and thereby minimize post-operative opioids, use of which can add further complications in this group of patients through decreased ventilation and increased atelectasis and hypercarbia. As well, current neuraxial local anesthetic therapy involving epidurals and paravertebral blocks require an absence of anticoagulation in the patient; as a fascial plane block, erector spinae blocks can be safely placed in patients on anticoagulation.