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Erector spinae plane nerve block catheters decrease hospital length of stay for autologous breast reconstruction patients
Doug Dembinski MD
Taylor Griffith, BS
Joe Easton, MD
Elizabeth Dale, MD
University of Cincinnati Medical Center
2022-02-01
Presenter: Joseph Easton, MD
Affidavit:
I certify that the material proposed for presentation in this abstract has not been published in any scientific journal or previously presented at a major meeting. All work on this project represents the original work of the resident.
Director Name: Ann Schwentker MD
Author Category: Resident Plastic Surgery
Presentation Category: Clinical
Abstract Category: Breast (Aesthetic and Recon.)
Background
Patients undergoing autologous breast reconstruction require intensive post-operative care and often spend multiple days in the hospital after their reconstruction. Adequate pain control can expedite the process of patients being discharged at an appropriate time. This in turn assists the hospital with resource allocation and costs to the patient. The erector spinae plane (ESP) nerve block was first introduced in 2016 and has shown to decrease postoperative opioid use and subjective pain scores in breast and thoracic surgery patients. We hypothesize that ESP nerve block catheters contribute to a shorter total length of stay in the hospital for patients undergoing autologous breast reconstruction.
Methods
A retrospective review of patients treated with autologous breast reconstruction at our institution was performed. Patients were then categorized as having ESP nerve block catheters placed or not. All patients' length of stay was then collected. Mann-Whitney comparison tests were run to analyze the ESP cohort against the non-block cohort.
Results
A total of 85 patients underwent autologous breast reconstruction between December 2015 and June 2021. 50 patients received ESP nerve blocks and had a median length of stay of 3 days, whereas 35 patients did not receive ESP nerve blocks and had a median length of stay of 4 days (p = 0.0002).
Conclusion
ESP nerve blocks are a relatively new technique for post-operative pain control and their use is still being explored. Our study shows that patients that underwent ESP nerve blocks after autologous breast reconstruction had a shorter median length of stay.
