Opioids have been considered the strongest option in clinical practice for the treatment of postoperative pain. However, in this setting, the spinal administration of an opioid drug does not always guarantee selective action and segmental analgesia in the spine due to partial reuptake to blood systemic circulation reaching brain receptors. Recent evidence from experimental studies indicates that bioavailability in the spinal cord biophase is negatively correlated with liposolubility, which is higher for hydrophilic opioids, than for lipophilic ones. Clinical guidelines recommend using a mixture of local anesthetic plus a strong opioid to improve the analgesic effect, minimize adverse effects and improve the overall patient´s satisfaction. Moreover, sometimes an opioid alone, typically morphine, can be administered to provide a long period of postoperative analgesia for 24 h, or even 48 h when an extended release epidural formulation is used. In all cases a vigilance protocol must be recommended to prevent either early or delayed respiratory depression.

The hemiclamshell incision is a valid but infrequent surgical alternative for the resection of tumors from mediastinum. This point makes this approach impossible to be studied under a randomized controlled trial. The triple association of thoracotomy, sternotomy and cervicothomy makes the hemiclamshell approach a high intensity postoperative pain surgery. However, there is no published data on this topic, and the reviewed articles only mention the analgesic regimens as a secondary point. Indeed, no author defines the best epidural drugs mixture for the patients. Multimodal analgesic regimen based on regional anesthesia should be used. Based on the recent advances on spinal opioids, morphine could be a good choice as epidural coadjutant to local anesthetics for hemiclamshell incision.

Fisiopatología clínica en pacientes con enfermedad de células falciformes: la transición del dolor agudo al crónico Clinical pathophysiology in patients with sickle cell disease: the transition from acute to chronic pain

Background and objectives: Post-thoracotomy pain management should be based on a multimodal approach that includes continuous regional analgesia. The objective of this study was to compare the analgesic efficacy of two concentrations of bupivacaine (0.2 % and 0.3 %) through a paravertebral catheter, both group plus fentanyl 2 mcg/ml.Methods: We conducted a randomized double-blind clinical trial to compare these two concentrations in patients undergoing pulmonary resection by thoracotomy in Donostia University Hospital between November 2010 and May 2011 (n = 59). The paravertebral catheter was placed prior to the surgical intervention, with the patient awake and sitting upright. Data were analyzed on an intention-to-treat basis. The Chi-squared test was used for qualitative variables and Student's t-tests or Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon tests for quantitative variables, depending on the distribution of the variables. Statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS software (Version 17).Results: We did not find statistically significant differences in postoperative pulmonary function (p = 0.49), self-perceived pain (VAS; p = 0.28) or cumulative morphine consumption (p = 0.101) in the two groups. We observed adverse effects in 8 patients in group 1 (29.6 %) and in 12 patients (37.5 %) in group 2, the difference not being statistically significant (p = 0.52).