title: Postoperative pain and preemptive local anesthetic infiltration in hallux valgus surgery.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Several techniques of anesthesia are used in foot surgery. Preemptive analgesia helps to prevent the development of hypersensitivity in the perioperative period. The aim of our study was to assess the role of preemptive local anesthetic infiltration and postoperative pain after hallux valgus surgery.
  
  
  METHODS
  We evaluated 118 patients who underwent modified chevron and mini-invasive Mitchell-Kramer bunionectomy of the first distal metatarsal. After spinal anesthesia each patient randomly received an infiltration of local anesthetic or the same amount of normal saline 10 minutes before the skin incision. We measured the intensity of pain 4, 8, 12, 16, 24, and 72 hours after the release of the tourniquet using a visual analogue scale (VAS). Rescue analgesia and all other side effects were noted.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Preemptive analgesia resulted in less pain during the first 24 hours after surgery. The decrease of VAS score was significantly lower in the study group during all the short postoperative periods measured. The rescue analgesia was administered in 11.9% of patients in the injected group and 42.4% in the placebo group (P < .05). In the injected group we did not observe significant difference in VAS score between patients post-chevron and miniinvasive Mitchell-Kramer osteotomy of the first distal metatarsal. No systemic adverse effects were noted. One persistent injury of dorsomedial cutaneous nerve was observed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Preemptive local anesthetic infiltration was an efficient and safe method to reduce postoperative pain after hallux valgus surgery. The analgesic effect was satisfactory in both traditional and minimally invasive techniques.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation of University Hospital in Krakow, Poland drartur@gazeta.pl.
authors.forename: Artur
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gądek
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation of University Hospital in Krakow, Poland.
authors.forename: Henryk
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liszka
authors.affiliation: Department of Pain Treatment and Palliative Care, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Krakow, Poland.
authors.forename: Jerzy
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wordliczek
mesh_terms: D000772:Anesthesia, Local / Q000379:methods*; D006215:Hallux Valgus / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D010147:Pain Measurement; D010149:Postoperative Pain / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000517:prevention & control*; D011292:Premedication; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011897:Random Allocation
keywords: hallux valgus anesthesia; local anesthetic infiltration; postoperative pain; preemptive analgesia