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Background: Common regional anesthesia approaches for video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) include paravertebral block (PVB) and erector spinae plane block (ESPB). PVB is considered a deep nerve block which is contraindicated in antithrombotic therapy. ESPB is effective when administered as a bolus, as well as continuously. However, the recently proposed intertransverse process block (ITPB) ensures more effective diffusion of the local anesthetic into the paravertebral space.Case: We report cases of three patients who received bolus ITPB (costotransverse foramen block and mid-point transverse process-to-pleura block in one and two cases, respectively) combined with continuous ESPB when a deep nerve block could not be administered. Opioids were not required postoperatively, and all postoperative numerical rating scale scores (0–10) at rest were maintained below 4.Conclusions: The combination of bolus ITPB and continuous ESPB may be an alternative analgesic method when deep nerve blocks are contraindicated in VATS.

OBJECTIVE Monitoring the intraoperative motor evoked potentials (MEPs) in pediatric craniotomy is challenging because of its low detection rate, which makes it unreliable. Tetanic stimulation of the peripheral nerves of the extremities and pudendal nerves prior to transcranial electrical stimulation (TES) or direct cortical stimulation (DCS) amplifies the MEPs. The authors investigated the effects of MEP amplification following tetanic stimulation of the median and tibial nerve or the pudendal nerve in pediatric patients undergoing craniotomy. METHODS This prospective observational study included 15 patients ≤ 15 years of age (mean age 8.9 ± 4.9 years) undergoing craniotomy. MEPs were obtained with TES (15 cases) or DCS (8 cases)—conventional MEP without tetanic stimulation (c-MEP) and MEP following tetanic stimulation of the unilateral median and tibial nerves (mt-MEP) or following tetanic stimulation of the pudendal nerve (p-MEP) were used. Compound muscle action potentials were elicited from the abductor pollicis brevis, gastrocnemius, tibialis anterior, and abductor hallucis longus muscles. The authors compared the identification rate and the rate of amplitude increase of each MEP. RESULTS For both TES and DCS, the identification and amplitude increase rates were significantly higher in cases without preoperative hemiparesis for p-MEPs than in those for c-MEPs and mt-MEPs. In comparison to patients with preoperative hemiparesis, p-MEPs displayed a higher identification rate, with fewer false negatives in DCS cases. CONCLUSIONS In pediatric craniotomy, the authors observed the amplification effect of MEPs with pudendal nerve tetanic stimulation and the amplification effect of DCS on MEPs without increasing false negatives. These findings suggested the likelihood of more reliable intraoperative MEP monitoring in pediatric cases.

Background: The Quality of Recovery-15 (QoR-15) and 12-item World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 scales are post-surgery patient-reported outcome measures. We aimed to evaluate the association between immediate in-hospital postoperative recovery and mid-term disability-free survival (DFS) after discharge.Methods: We conducted a prospective observational study at a university hospital and enrolled 260 patients aged ≥ 65 years with cancer who were undergoing elective major abdominal surgery. The association between poor postoperative recovery, defined as a QoR-15 score < 90 on postoperative day (POD) 2, and the DFS three months later was assessed using Fisher’s exact test. The odds ratio of poor recovery on POD 2 to DFS was calculated using multiple logistic regression analysis adjusted for prominent factors (age, preoperative frailty, preoperative DFS, surgical duration, and intraoperative blood loss volume).Results: A total of 230 patients completed the 3-month follow-up. On POD 2, 27.3% of the patients (63/230) had poor recovery. A greater number of patients without poor recovery on POD 2 had DFS at three months after surgery (79.6%) than those with poor recovery (65.1%) (P = 0.026). The adjusted odds ratio of poor recovery on POD 2 to DFS at three months was 0.481 (95% CI [0.233, 0.994]).Conclusions: Patients with poor recovery on POD 2 were less likely to have DFS three months after abdominal surgery. These findings may allow for early and effective interventions to be initiated based on each patient’s condition after abdominal surgery.