Conditions: Surgery, Hand
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 5
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
The purpose of this study is to determine whether the addition of dexamethasone prolongs analgesia when added to long-acting local anesthetic during single-injection supraclavicular block for outpatient hand surgery.

Detailed description:
The goal for pain control after surgery is to provide the best possible pain control for the longest period of time with the least amount of side effects. One type of pain medication is called local anesthetic, which is a numbing medication that is injected in the area surrounding nerves to block pain. This injection is called a nerve block. Ropivacaine is a local anesthetic that is commonly used for nerve blocks and will be used in this study. The effects of ropivacaine may last for 8 to 12 hours after surgery. Recent research studies have shown that adding a medication called dexamethasone (a steroid) may increase the time that the nerve block will provide pain control. The purpose of this study is to see if adding dexamethasone to ropivacaine and injecting this around the nerves during a supraclavicular brachial plexus block increases the duration of pain relief as compared to both placebo control and systemic control groups.

Arms:
arm 1: This group will be comprised of 20 subjects who will receive an ultrasound-guided supraclavicular brachial plexus block with 30ml of ropivacaine 0.5% with 1:400,000 epinephrine and an IV preservative-free dexamethasone 8 mg injection. arm 2: This group will be comprised of 20 subjects who will receive an ultrasound-guided supraclavicular brachial plexus block with 30ml of ropivacaine 0.5% with 1:400,000 epinephrine and an intravenous (IV) normal saline placebo injection. arm 3: This group will be comprised of 20 subjects who will receive an ultrasound-guided supraclavicular brachial plexus block with 30ml of ropivacaine 0.5% with both 1:400,000 epinephrine and preservative-free dexamethasone 8mg and an IV normal saline placebo injection.

Interventions: intervention 1: Ropivacaine intervention 2: Dexamethasone intervention 3: Placebo
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: None intervention 2: None intervention 3: None

Protocol document: