Clinical trial NCT03752957: Wide-Awake Local Anesthesia For Flexor Tendon Repair
Official title: Wide-Awake Local Anesthesia No Tourniquet Versus. Local/General Anesthesia for Flexor Tendon Repair
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: UNKNOWN
Conditions: Flexor Tendon Injury
Keywords: Wide-Awake Local Anesthesia
Lead sponsor: Assiut University
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2018-11-26
Enrollment: 40
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Observational model: COHORT
Time perspective: PROSPECTIVE
Sampling method: PROBABILITY_SAMPLE
Study population: Assiut University Hospital , microsurgery unit

Brief summary: Primary repair for flexor tendon lacerations remain the standard of care. However, despite recent advances in knowledge of tendon healing, suture material, and post-operative protocols, outcomes have been reported as fair or poor in 7-20% of patients. Complications encountered include adhesion formation, development of joint contractures, tendon rupture, triggering, bow stringing and quadriplegia. Tendon surgery is unique because it should ensure tendon gliding after surgery Tendon surgery now can be performed under local anesthesia without tourniquet, by injecting epinephrine mixed with lidocaine, to achieve vasoconstriction in the area of surgery. This method allows the tendon to move actively during surgery to test tendon function intraoperatively and to ensure the tendon is properly repaired before leaving the operating table.

Wide awake hand surgery is well described by its other name, WALANT which stands for wide awake local anaesthesia no tourniquet. The only two medications most patients are given for wide awake hand surgery are Lidocaine for anaesthesia and epinephrine for haemostasis. In the period before 1950, the belief developed among surgeons that epinephrine causes finger necrosis .The source of the epinephrine myth stemmed from the use of procaine (Novocaine). It was the only safely injectable local anaesthetic until the introduction of Lidocaine in 1948. More fingers died from procaine injection alone than from procaine plus epinephrine injection .no lost finger no case require phentolamine in many studies.

Detailed description: Primary repair for flexor tendon lacerations remain the standard of care. However, despite recent advances in knowledge of tendon healing, suture material, and post-operative protocols, outcomes have been reported as fair or poor in 7-20% of patients. Complications encountered include adhesion formation, development of joint contractures, tendon rupture, triggering, bowstringing and quadrigia. Tendon surgery is unique because it should ensure tendon gliding after surgery It has been a standard practice to obtain local or general anesthesia and apply a tourniquet to perform tendon surgery. However, this practice has been changed in recent years...

Tendon surgery now can be performed under local anesthesia without tourniquet, by injecting epinephrine mixed with lidocaine, to achieve vasoconstriction in the area of surgery. This method allows the tendon to move actively during surgery to test tendon function intraoperatively and to ensure the tendon is properly repaired before leaving the operating table.

The surgeon can inspect for bunching, gapping, and triggering of the repair site in an active fashion. Thus, an opportunity is available to revise the repair, trim or add extra sutures, revise pulley reconstruction, or de-bulk tendons before wound closure Wide awake hand surgery is well described by its other name, WALANT which stands for wide awake local anaesthesia no tourniquet. The only two medications most patients are given for wide awake hand surgery are Lidocaine for anaesthesia and epinephrine for haemostasis. In the period before 1950, the belief developed among surgeons that epinephrine causes finger necrosis .The source of the epinephrine myth stemmed from the use of procaine (Novocaine).8 It was the only safely injectable local anaesthetic until the introduction of Lidocaine in 1948. More fingers died from procaine injection alone than from procaine plus epinephrine injection .no lost finger no case require phentolamine in many studies.The "smoking gun" paper that established that procaine was the actual cause of finger deaths published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that found batches of procaine with a pH of 1 destined for injection into humans.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* over the age of 18 acute single or multiple digit complete flexor tendon lacerations in zones I or II

Exclusion Criteria:

* gross wound contamination
* segmental tendon loss
* associated finger fractures
* complex or multisystem injuries
* complex or multisystem injuries
* mangled hand injuries

Primary outcomes:
measure: post operative complication rate
timeFrame: average 2 months
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
Study officials:
affiliation: Assiut University
name: Tarek Abdula ELgamal
role: STUDY_CHAIR
affiliation: Assiut University
name: Amr Elsaid Ali
role: STUDY_CHAIR
affiliation: Assiut University
name: Mohamed Mostafa Kotb
role: STUDY_DIRECTOR
References: