Abstract
BACKGROUND: Ophthalmologists are now encouraged to perform strabismus surgery as an outpatient procedure, but postoperative pain may be a barrier to discharge. Systemic analgesics have side effects or are contraindicated in some patients. We designed a trial to determine the efficacy of subtenons lidocaine injection at reducing postoperative pain and systemic analgesia requirements.
METHODS: Children having unilateral primary horizontal muscle surgery were randomized to either receive an injection of 1 mL of 2% lidocaine into the inferonasal subtenons space or not. The child's parents, who were masked to the intervention, assessed pain over 4 hours postoperatively using an objective pain-scoring tool.
RESULTS: Seventeen children received injections and 14 did not. Five of the subtenons group required additional analgesia (29%) compared to 9 of the controls (64%, chi(2): P =.052). The pain scores at each time interval tended to be lower in the treatment group, compared to controls, statistically significantly so at the 2-hour observation (Mann-Whitney U test: P =.01).
CONCLUSIONS: These data provide some evidence of an association between the use of subtenons lidocaine injection and a reduction of pain experienced by children in the immediate postoperative period following primary strabismus surgery.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 38-41 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Journal | JOURNAL- AAPOS |
Volume | 7 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Feb 2003 |
Keywords
- Anesthetics, Local
- Child
- Child, Preschool
- Female
- Humans
- Injections
- Lidocaine
- Male
- Ophthalmologic Surgical Procedures
- Pain, Postoperative
- Palliative Care
- Pilot Projects
- Single-Blind Method
- Strabismus
- Clinical Trial
- Journal Article
- Randomized Controlled Trial