Postoperative pain therapy after total knee arthroplasty: Is the local infiltration anesthesia the best therapy?

Abstract

Background: Optimal perioperative pain management after total knee arthroplasty is necessary to promote mobilization and achieve early rehabilitation. The aim of this study was to determine whether local infiltration anesthesia (LIA) is the better postoperative pain therapy compared to a femoral nerve block (FNB) or a sciatic nerve block (SNB) using routine data. Methods: Data from the acute pain registry “Qualitätsverbesserung in der postoperativen Schmerztherapie” (QUIPS) were analyzed. The endpoints included postoperative maximal pain, frequency of pain-related movement impairment, nausea, and number of patients requesting opioids postoperatively. The influence of regional anesthesia in addition to general anesthesia was analyzed in 5 groups. Results: In total, the data of 8754 patients could be examined. It was found that the addition of LIA (β = −0.087 p = 0.000) or FNB (β = −0.137 p = 0.000) to general anesthesia is associated with a small but significant reduction of postoperative maximum pain. Between LIA, FNB, and SNB no relevant differences could be detected. Discussion: The pain reduction achieved by adding LIA or FNB in patients after total knee arthroplasty is relatively small. Comparison of techniques is hindered as there exists no widely accepted standard for performing LIAs yet.