The Prevention of Hypotension After Epidural Analgesia After Major Surgery

Pain Clinical Trial

Official title: The Prevention of Hypotension After Epidural Analgesia After Major Surgery by Adding Epinephrine to Infusions to Counteract Sympathectomy: a Double- Blind, Controlled, Randomized, Prospective Dose-finding Study

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

Epidural analgesia via continuous epidurally infused local anesthetic agent (LA) is widely and very successfully used routinely for perioperative pain control in patients undergoing major orthopedic and abdominal surgery since 1928. The choice currently depends on the preference of the APS physician in charge of the case. A frequent unwanted side effect of epidural block is hypotension due to the epidurally injected LA blocking the sympathetic nerves and thus the patient's response to hypotension, which is usually due to hypovolemia and/or an unopposed parasympathetic (via the vagus nerve) nervous system. The purpose of this research study is to see if adding epinephrine, to the epidural anesthetic will decrease possible side effects, such as low blood pressure, and lead to a better effect of the epidural anesthetic.

Clinical Trial Description

Participants undergoing epidural analgesia to treat perioperative pain associated with major surgery will be approached for their willingness to participate in the study. Participants undergoing major thoracic, abdominal, or orthopaedic surgery for whom thoracic or lumbar epidural block would be indicated and planned for intraoperative and postoperative analgesia as per the University of Florida Acute Pain Service (APS) usual and routine practice will be included in this study.

All participants will receive a standardized continuous epidural block at the appropriate level for the planned surgery by the APS physicians in the block room that day. For the standardized continuous epidural block, placement will be confirmed with loss of resistance technique (LORA), wave form analysis or nerve stimulation.

Participants will be randomly allocated by computer-generated randomization to one of four groups. This will be a quintuple blinded prospective study. The anesthesiologist managing the intraoperative anesthesia, the anesthesiologists (APS) placing the blocks and following the participants on the floors, the research nurse taking the measurement, the surgeons, nor the participants will be aware of what combination of drugs are used for the epidural block infusion.

The three groups will consist of:

1. Group A (Ropivacaine 0.2% infusion; Control group)

2. Group B (Ropivacaine 0.2% + 2 mcg/mL epinephrine)

3. Group C (Ropivacaine 0.2% + 5 mcg/mL epinephrine) ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Hypotension
• Pain

• NCT number: NCT02722746
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: University of Florida
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: November 15, 2016
• Completion date: September 14, 2018