Efficacy and safety of continuous intravenous lidocaine administration as a component of intraoperative analgesia and postoperative intensive care in extensive liver resections

Abstract

Purpose - to improve the effectiveness and determine the safety of intraoperative analgesia and postoperative intensive care for extensive liver resections with intravenous lidocaine compared with traditional analgesia and the use of epidural anesthesia.

Materials and methods. 108 patients of 18 years of age and older who underwent extensive liver resection were examined and analyzed. The studied patients were stratified into three groups, depending on the choice of intra- and postoperative analgesia: the Group I (22 patients) - intravenous lidocaine administration + traditional intra- and postoperative analgesia, the Group II (73 patients) - epidural anesthesia (EDA) in the thoracic spine + traditional intra - and postoperative analgesia, the Group III (13 patients) - control, which used only traditional intra- and postoperative analgesia.

Probability of differences was assessed using Student’s t-test, non-parametric Mann-Whitney U-test, Pearson’s χ² test.

Results. The blood lidocaine concentration in 2 hours after surgery was higher in the Group II (2.37±1.08 μg/ml) compared to the Group I (1.84±1.16 μg/ml). The values for 14 hours after the intervention did not differ (2.62±2.56 μg/ml - in the Group I, 2.85±1.25 μg/ml - in the Group II). In some cases, the local anesthetic content exceeded the toxic level without corresponding clinical symptoms. Intravenous lidocaine administration led to a decrease pain intensity within 4 days after surgery by almost 1.5 times, epidural administration - by 1.5-2 times compared to the standard analgesia, and was also accompanied by a lengthening of the time interval until the first injection of narcotic analgesics from 86.9±68.2 min to 394.3±666.5 and 553.2±52.8.5 min, respectively.

Changing the route of local anesthetic administration from epidural to intravenous led to decrease intraoperative volume of infusion therapy from 9.4±2.5 ml/kg/h to 7.4±1.3 ml/kg/h, as well as to reduction of the norepinephrine dose to eliminate hypotension by 1.3 times.

Lidocaine administration attenuated the intensity of the systemic inflammatory response syndrome, which was manifested by a reduction in the concentration of IL-1, IL-4, IL-10 compared to multicomponent analgesia without a statistical difference with the epidural route of lidocaine administration.

Conclusions. The use of lidocaine as an adjuvant in traditional intra- and postoperative analgesia for extensive liver resection reduces pain intensity and the degree of systemic inflammatory response syndrome. Changing the method of using lidocaine from epidural to intravenous leads to more stable intraoperative blood circulation, reduction the volume of infusion therapy and the need for sympathomimetic support without increasing blood concentration, and in the proposed method is an attractive alternative to epidural analgesia.

The research was carried out in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. The study protocol was approved by the Local Ethics Committee of the institution mentioned in the work. Informed consent of the patients was obtained for the research.

No conflict of interests was declared by the authors.