Treatment of Postoperative Pain After Total Knee Arthroplasy Using Intravenous Lidocaine Infusion
Status:
Withdrawn
Trial end date:
2009-07-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Total knee replacement is often associated with severe postoperative pain, especially in the
first 24 hours. Patient controlled analgesia (PCA) and continuous femoral block with PCA are
commonly used to treat postoperative pain after total knee arthroplasty. However, PCAs use
opioids. Opioids are excellent painkillers but their use is hampered by side effects such as
nausea, vomiting, bowel dysfunction, urinary retention, pruritus, sedation and respiratory
depression. We propose to test the hypothesis that adding a low dose lidocaine infusion to
PCAs will lower the amount of opioids that these patients receive, thereby improving patient
safety while still providing adequate analgesia. In addition, continuous femoral block has
been shown to provide superior postoperative pain control when compared to morphine PCA.
Therefore, postoperative pain levels of study subjects will be compared to those subjects who
receive a combination of a continuous femoral block catheter with a PCA.