Epidural analgesia--the jury is in

Epidural analgesia for postoperative pain: Improving outcomes or adding risks?

Current evidence shows that the benefits of epidural analgesia (EA) are not as impressive as believed in the past, while the risks of adverse effects and serious complications are greater than previously estimated. There are many reasons for the decreasing role of epidural technique in clinical practice (table). Indeed, EA can cause harm and hinder early mobilization in enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) programmes. Some ERAS interventions are complex, confusing, sometimes contradictory and apparently unimplementable. In spite of much hype and after almost 25 years, the originator of the concept has described the current status of ERAS as 'far from good'. Outpatient surgery setup has been a remarkable success for many major surgical procedures, and it predates ERAS and appears to be a simpler and better model for reducing postoperative morbidity and hospitalization times. Systematic reviews of comparative studies have shown that less invasive and safer but equally effective alternatives to EA are available for almost all major surgical procedures. These include: paravertebral block, peripheral nerve blocks, catheter wound infusion, periarticular local infiltration analgesia, preperitoneal catheters and transversus abdominis plane block. Increasingly, these non-EA methods are being used as surgeon-delivered regional analgesia (RA) techniques. This encouraging trend of active surgeon participation, with anaesthesiologist collaboration, will undoubtedly improve the decades-old twin problems of underused RA techniques and undertreated postoperative pain. The continued use of EA at any institution can only be justified by results from its own audits; however, regrettably only very few institutions perform such regular audits.

Managing epidural catheters in critical care beds: An observation analysis in the Republic of Ireland

In certain hospitals, epidural analgesia is restricted to critical care beds. Due to critical care bed strain, it is likely that many patients are unable to avail of epidural analgesia. The aims of the study were to retrospectively review the number of patients admitted to critical care beds for epidural analgesia over a two-year period 2015–16, to determine the duration of epidural analgesia, to identify the average critical care bed occupancy during this period, to get updated information on the implementation of acute pain service in the Republic of Ireland and the availability of ward-based epidural analgesia. One hundred and sixty patients had a midline laparotomy, 40 of which had an epidural (25%). Forty-two patients were admitted to a critical care bed for epidural analgesia. Aside from epidural analgesia, 12% had other indications for ICU admission. Median duration epidural analgesia was 1.64 days (IQR 0.98–2.14 days). ICU bed occupancy rates were 88.7% in 2015 and 85.1% in 2016. Acute pain service and ward-based epidural analgesia were available in 46 and 42% of hospitals, respectively. Restricting epidural use to a critical care setting is likely to result in reduced access to epidural analgesia. The implementation of acute pain service and availability of ward-based epidural analgesia in the Republic of Ireland are suboptimal.