Introduction: Burn injury and reconstructive operations often result in severe pain, particularly at skin graft donor sites. Traditional local anesthetics administered intraoperatively control pain at donor sites, but the duration of action is short. Liposomal bupivacaine, a novel local anesthetic, can provide sustained-release analgesia for 72h. The primary aim of this study was to describe the efficacy of liposomal bupivacaine for postoperative donor site pain control for patients undergoing skin graft procedures.
Methods: A retrospective cohort study was performed on patients who received a donor site liposomal bupivacaine field block and was compared to a matched control. Patients rated donor site pain on post-operative day 0 and 1, and stated whether the donor or graft site was more painful.
Results: Fifty-eight patients were included. Twenty-nine patients received liposomal bupivacaine. Eighty-six percent of patients in the treatment group rated donor site pain as three or less on postoperative day 0 and 1, compared to 3.4% in the control (p<0.0001). Also, 76% of patients in the treatment group stated donor site pain was less than graft site pain, compared to 3.4% in the control (p<0.0001).
Conclusion: Patients who received liposomal bupivacaine reported less postoperative donor site pain and found the donor site to be less bothersome without major complications. Liposomal bupivacaine may be a safe and promising agent for prolonging postoperative analgesia and minimizing donor site pain.
Keywords: Burn analgesia; Burn pain control; Donor site analgesia; Exparel; Liposomal bupivacaine; Skin graft analgesia.
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