Ropivacaine Pharmacokinetics in ESP Blocks

Pain Clinical Trial

Official title:

A Safety Study of Ropivacaine Concentrations During Continuous Erector Spinae Plane Block for Thoracic Surgery

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Active, not recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT04807504
• Other study ID #: 20G.754
• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Start date: March 26, 2021
• Est. completion date: November 2022

Study information

• Verified date: June 2022
• Source: Thomas Jefferson University
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Observational

Clinical Trial Summary

This is a pharmacokinetic study to determine risk of local anesthetic systemic toxicity of ropivacaine when used in erector spinae plane blocks for thoracic surgery. Through serial blood sampling and the use of NONMEM population pharmacokinetic analysis this risk will be determined for the study population and other populations as well. Pain and quality of recovery will also be assessed.The erector spinae plane (ESP) block was first described in 2016 as a novel fascial plane block that provided analgesia for thoracic neuropathic pain. Since then hundreds of articles have been published that have reported use of the ESP block for indications such as rib fractures, breast surgery, abdominal surgery, and even shoulder surgery. It has also been studied in thoracic surgery and clinical experience confirms that patients undergoing video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) or robot-assisted thoracic surgery experience satisfactory analgesia with ESP blocks. Because the block location is further from the neuraxis than both epidural and paravertebral blocks, ESP blocks have been suggested as a safer alternative to these older blocks but safety data have not yet been generated. In particular, the risk of local anesthetic systemic toxicity (LAST) has not been studied in ESP blocks. While the pharmacokinetics of ropivacaine used for thoracic paravertebral blocks have been established, similar studies have yet to be performed for the newer ESP block. Of particular concern for ESP blocks are two factors not present in some other blocks with established safety: 1). significant intercostal spread has been noted in anatomical studies, which could put patients at risk for LAST and 2). some of the proposed dosing regimens involve the intermittent injection of large bolus doses of local anesthetic. While measurement of arterial plasma levels is useful and necessary to study the safety of ropivacaine given in ESP blocks, the measurements alone do not allow for prediction of plasma levels that would occur in populations as a whole. Nonmem is a population pharmacokinetic application that provides estimates of mean parameters and residual variability in pharmacokinetic values across populations and has been shown to generate better estimates than the two-stage approach. Nonmem will be used in this study to predict pharmacokinetics in populations with different characteristics than the one being studied here, which would create generalizable results.

Description:

The erector spinae plane (ESP) block was first described in 2016 as a novel fascial plane block that provided analgesia for thoracic neuropathic pain. Since then hundreds of articles have been published that have reported use of the ESP block for indications such as rib fractures, breast surgery, abdominal surgery, and even shoulder surgery. It has also been studied in thoracic surgery and our clinical experience confirms that patients undergoing video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) or robot-assisted thoracic surgery experience satisfactory analgesia with ESP blocks. Because the block location is further from the neuraxis than both epidural and paravertebral blocks, ESP blocks have been suggested as a safer alternative to these older blocks but safety data have not yet been generated. In particular, the risk of local anesthetic systemic toxicity (LAST) has not been studied in ESP blocks. While the pharmacokinetics of ropivacaine used for thoracic paravertebral blocks have been established, similar studies have yet to be performed for the newer ESP block. Of particular concern for ESP blocks are two factors not present in some other blocks with established safety: 1). significant intercostal spread has been noted in anatomical studies, which could put patients at risk for LAST and 2). some of the proposed dosing regimens involve the intermittent injection of large bolus doses of local anesthetic. While measurement of arterial plasma levels is useful and necessary to study the safety of ropivacaine given in ESP blocks, the measurements alone do not allow for prediction of plasma levels that would occur in populations as a whole. Nonmem is a population pharmacokinetic application that provides estimates of mean parameters and residual variability in pharmacokinetic values across populations and has been shown to generate better estimates than the two-stage approach. Nonmem will be used in this study to predict pharmacokinetics in populations with different characteristics than the one being studied here, which would create generalizable results.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Enrollment: 20
• Est. completion date: November 2022
• Est. primary completion date: November 2022
• Accepts healthy volunteers: No
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• undergoing robotic or video-assisted thoracic surgery
• able to speak English

Exclusion Criteria:

• active liver disease
• active renal disease
• ropivacaine allergy

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Local Anesthetic Systemic Toxicity
• Pain
• Quality of Recovery

Intervention

Drug:
• Ropivacaine
All patients receive erector spinae plane blocks with ropivacaine.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	Thomas Jefferson University Hospital	Philadelphia	Pennsylvania

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Thomas Jefferson University

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

References & Publications (4)

Forero M, Adhikary SD, Lopez H, Tsui C, Chin KJ. The Erector Spinae Plane Block: A Novel Analgesic Technique in Thoracic Neuropathic Pain. Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2016 Sep-Oct;41(5):621-7. doi: 10.1097/AAP.0000000000000451. — View Citation

Karmakar MK, Ho AM, Law BK, Wong AS, Shafer SL, Gin T. Arterial and venous pharmacokinetics of ropivacaine with and without epinephrine after thoracic paravertebral block. Anesthesiology. 2005 Oct;103(4):704-11. — View Citation

Knudsen K, Beckman Suurküla M, Blomberg S, Sjövall J, Edvardsson N. Central nervous and cardiovascular effects of i.v. infusions of ropivacaine, bupivacaine and placebo in volunteers. Br J Anaesth. 1997 May;78(5):507-14. — View Citation

Luis-Navarro JC, Seda-Guzmán M, Luis-Moreno C, López-Romero JL. The erector spinae plane block in 4 cases of video-assisted thoracic surgery. Rev Esp Anestesiol Reanim (Engl Ed). 2018 Apr;65(4):204-208. doi: 10.1016/j.redar.2017.12.004. Epub 2018 Jan 11. English, Spanish. — View Citation

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Mean maximum plasma concentration of ropivacaine		24 hours
Secondary	Mean pain scores	Numerical rating scale pain scores (0-10 where 0 is no pain and 10 is worst pain imaginable)	24 hours
Secondary	Opioid consumption	Mean amount of opioids consumed in morphine milligram equivalents	24 hours
Secondary	Sensory levels	Mean number of dermatomes blocked after erector spinae plane block	12 hours
Secondary	Quality of recovery	The mean quality of recovery 15 survey scores (0-150 where 0 is worst quality of recovery and 150 is best)	24 hours