Pectoral nerves block as a component of multimodal analgesia in breast cancer surgery

• Published in: Vestnik anesteziologii i reanimatologii Vol. 16; no. 6; pp. 30 - 36
• Main Authors: Buyanov, A. S., Stadler, V. V., Zabolotskiy, D. V., Koryachkin, V. A., Vozdvizhenskiy, M. O., Borisov, A. P., Tkachev, M. V.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New Terra Publishing House 27-01-2020
• Subjects: breast cancer; multimodal analgesia; pectoral nerve block; regional anesthesia
• ISSN: 2078-5658; 2541-8653
• DOI: 10.21292/2078-5658-2019-16-6-30-36

Objective:
to evaluate the efficacy and safety of adding pectoral nerve block to anesthesia regimen in radical mastectomy.
Subjects and methods.
65 female patients underwent unilateral radical mastectomy under general anesthesia. All patients enrolled into the study were divided into two groups. Group 1 included patients (the main one,
n
= 33) who had PEC block and general anesthesia; Group 2 (the control one,
n
= 32) had general anesthesia only.
Results.
The group of patients with PEC block versus the Control Group, demonstrated a lower score of the visual analogue scale at all stages of the study. The intra-operative fentanyl consumption was statistically significantly lower in Group 1 versus the Control Group (290.91 ± 67.84 and 393.75 ± 66.90 μg, respectively,
p
< 0.033). The consumption of opioid analgesics during the 1st day in the Main Group was 2-fold lower compared to the Control Group – 30.91 ± 12.34 and 63.75 ± 9.42 mg, respectively (
p
< 0.026). In Group 1, the time till the first analgesia with promedol made 309.55 ± 56.59 minutes.
Conclusions.
Pectoral nerves block combined with general anesthesia provides effective analgesia during breast surgery with axillary lymph node dissection.