A prospective study of multimodal cocktail intercostal injection for chest pain relief after costal cartilage harvest for ear reconstruction

Abstract

Chest pain is one of the most common complaints after costal cartilage harvest.The present study aimed to compare the effectiveness of intraoperative area local injection after costal cartilage harvest when mixed drugs or ropivacaine plus analgesic pump is used, as measured by visual analogue scale (VAS) scores, rescue analgesic consumption, postoperative movement steps, and related complications. Eligible microtia patients who underwent costal cartilage harvest during ear reconstruction were randomly assigned to either a mixed drugs injection group (mixed drugs group) or ropivacaine plus analgesic pump group (analgesic pump group).The VAS scores in the mixed drugs group were significantly lower than those in the analgesic pump group at rest (p < 0.05) and the VAS scores in the mixed drugs group were significantly lower than those in the analgesic pump group during coughing (p < 0.05) before 96h after surgery. Rescue analgesic consumption and rate of complications were significantly lower in the mixed drugs group compared with the analgesic pump group (all p<0.05). Postoperative mobility of patients was significantly higher in the mixed drugs group compared with the analgesic pump group(p < 0.05).In conclusion, compared with ropivacaine plus analgesic pump, local injection of mixed drugs reduced chest pain after costal cartilage harvest for microtia ear reconstruction with less rescue analgesic consumption and complications, improved the postoperative movement steps of patients.