Clinical trial NCT03705637: Liposomal Bupivicaine for Skin Graft Donor Sites in Burn Patients
Official title: Evaluation of Liposomal Bipivicaine in Split Thickness Skin Graft Donor Sites in Burn Patients
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: TERMINATED
Phase: EARLY_PHASE1
Conditions: Burns
Postoperative Pain
Lead sponsor: Massachusetts General Hospital
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2018-10-15
Enrollment: 6
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: NA
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose: OTHER

Brief summary: Burn injuries are painful to patients and the sources of pain result from many areas including: the injury itself, wound care, and surgery. Inpatients that require surgical skin grafting is often required and the donor site of a skin graft is quite painful for patients. The investigators try to minimize that pain with local anesthetic as well as a combination of pain medications, the donor site pain lasts for days and is what patients often report as being the most painful part of their burn care.

There has been the development of a new form of local anesthesia that can last up to 72 hours when injected into tissue. Based on encouraging results in the literature in areas outside of burns, this study aims to evaluate whether administration of this medication at the time of surgery can help improve pain for burn patients in the postoperative period.

Detailed description: Patients suffer from pain resulting from the injury, wound care, and surgical treatment of their burns. As a result, they often require considerable amounts of narcotics. Given the concern for opiate addiction and the national opiate crisis the investigators have tried to explore other non-opiate means of pain control. One of the newest methods for pain relief is with liposomal bupivacaine, which can provide local analgesia for up to 72 hours at the site of injection. This medication has been used with good effect in multiple contexts.

Skin graft donor sites are the most painful portion of their surgical treatment and the pain typically is most severe during the first few days after surgery. For this reason, the investigators believe the addition of Exparel to the donor site will help with improved multi-modal pain control, making patients more comfortable. It also may decrease opiate requirements which would be beneficial for burn patients.

Few previous studies have been conducted using Exparel at the donor sites of skin grafted burn patients. One case series compares usage of Exparel from two different institutions, however the sample size at each was relatively small (n=20, 5, respectively). Their findings suggest that Exparel may be an effective way of managing postsurgical donor site pain. Based on these limited data there is a need for more robust studies, which is the motivation for doing this larger evaluation of patients.

The investigators believe that the use of Exparel can decrease pain for patients after surgery, in particular at their skin graft donor sites. The investigators want to conduct this study to evaluate whether Exparel can improve pain control for their patients and decrease their need for opiate narcotics.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Burn size ≤15% TBSA
* Anticipated one trip to operating room for single stage excision and grafting
* Total donor site surface area \<500cm2
* Opioid naïve prior to admission for treatment of burn
* Patient able to consent
* 18 years or older

Exclusion Criteria:

Medical Exclusions:

* Cardiac arrhythmias
* Heart block
* Pregnancy
* Breast-feeding mothers who will be unable to stop breastfeeding for 8 days post-injection
* Allergy to bupvicaine
* Bradycardia
* Severe liver disease
* Incapacity to consent themselves
* Unlikely to survive burn Burn related exclusions
* Current substance abuse
* On opioids prior to admission
* Burn larger than 15% TBSA
* Prior autografting for this particular burn

Primary outcomes:
measure: Morphine milligram equivalents (MME) administered after receiving Exparel
timeFrame: 3 weeks after hospital discharge
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Length of hospital stay
timeFrame: Up to 4 weeks
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Boston
country: United States
facility: Massachusetts General Hospital
state: Massachusetts
Study officials:
References:
citation: Rice DC, Cata JP, Mena GE, Rodriguez-Restrepo A, Correa AM, Mehran RJ. Posterior Intercostal Nerve Block With Liposomal Bupivacaine: An Alternative to Thoracic Epidural Analgesia. Ann Thorac Surg. 2015 Jun;99(6):1953-60. doi: 10.1016/j.athoracsur.2015.02.074. Epub 2015 Apr 23.
citation: Mehran RJ, Martin LW, Baker CM, Mena GE, Rice DC. Pain Management in an Enhanced Recovery Pathway After Thoracic Surgical Procedures. Ann Thorac Surg. 2016 Dec;102(6):e595-e596. doi: 10.1016/j.athoracsur.2016.05.050.
citation: Dissanaike S, McCauley J, Alphonso C. Liposomal bupivacaine for the management of postsurgical donor site pain in patients with burn injuries: a case series from two institutions. Clin Case Rep. 2017 Dec 5;6(1):129-135. doi: 10.1002/ccr3.1292. eCollection 2018 Jan.
citation: Kaplan RS, Porter ME. How to solve the cost crisis in health care. Harv Bus Rev. 2011 Sep;89(9):46-52, 54, 56-61 passim.