Improvement in Postoperative Pain Control and Length of Stay With Peripheral Nerve Block Prior to Distal Radius Repair.

Abstract

Distal radius repair is a common orthopedic surgery often performed at outpatient surgical centers. To date, little is known regarding optimal pain control in this setting. In this study, the authors evaluated patients who underwent distal radius open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF) in an outpatient surgery center setting. Comparisons between 2 surgical groups, peripheral nerve block without general anesthesia vs general anesthesia only, were recorded in terms of postoperative length of stay (LOS) in phase I, total LOS, and patient-reported pain level at discharge. The authors identified 80 patients undergoing distal radius ORIF from March to August 2016. A total of 37 (46.3%) patients received general anesthesia only and 43 (53.8%) patients received peripheral nerve block without general anesthesia. Overall, patients in the nerve block only group showed a statistically significant decrease in pain at discharge, as well as decreased phase I and total LOS. Although the power of the data is low relative to the number of distal radius procedures performed every year, there is a trend of better pain control and decreased LOS when using nerve blocks instead of general anesthesia. [Orthopedics. 2020;43(6):e549-e552.].