A guide to regional analgesia for Total Knee Arthroplasty

Abstract

■ Regional analgesia has been introduced successfully into the postoperative pain management after total knee arthroplasty, reducing pain scores, opioid use and adverse effects. ■ Combination of regional analgesia techniques is associated with better pain management and lower side effects than single regional techniques. ■ Adductor canal block provides good analgesia and considerably lower detrimental effect in muscular strength than femoral nerve block, enhancing surgical recovery. ■ Infiltration techniques may have equivalent analgesic effect than epidural analgesia and peripheral nerve blocks, however there should be awareness of dose dependent toxicity. ■ Novel long-acting local anesthetics role for regional analgesia is still to be determined, and will require larger randomized trials to support its advantage over traditional local anesthetics.