Application of a locally placed anesthesia catheter for reduction of postoperative pain after mastectomy for breast cancer.
OBJECTIVE
Postoperative pain management is important, especially in cancer patients. We describe our experience with the application of a locally placed continuous local anesthetic-releasing catheter for wound pain reduction after mastectomy for breast cancer.


METHODS
Retrospective evaluation of a continuous series of 41 patients at Fayette Medical Center, AL, USA, receiving an anesthetic-releasing catheter from January 2000 until June 2004. We used a pain management system with 270 ml volume of 0.25% Sensorcaine (bupivacaine and epinephrine) and a release rate through dual catheter ends of 2 ml/h each, lasting for approx. 67.5 h post op.


RESULTS
41 patients, age 67.0 (42-84) years, height 164.5 (152.4-177.8) cm, weight 71.1 (45.4-129.4) kg were treated after mastectomies (n=43; two bilateral) for breast cancer (n=30) and carcinoma in situ (CIS) (n= 11) with a local anesthetic wound catheter (n=43). The following procedures were performed: 31 modified radical mastectomies, 10 simple mastectomies and 2 simple mastectomies with sentinel lymph nodes. Intraoperative application of such a catheter system took less than 3 minutes. No intra- or postoperative complication or infection occurred within a follow up time of 30.3 months (0.2-52.4).


CONCLUSIONS
Application of this temporary anesthesia catheter after mastectomy is easy and safe and reduces postoperative pain.
Jacobs
Volker R
VR
Department of Surgery, Fayette Medical Center (FMC), Fayette, AL, USA. volkerjacobs@hotmail.com
Morrison
John E
JE
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000779:Anesthetics, Local / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000601:surgery*; D002404:Catheterization / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D010149:Postoperative Pain / Q000628:therapy*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D016896:Treatment Outcome
D000779:Anesthetics, Local