Conditions: Injury of Anterior Cruciate Ligament
Keywords: anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction transplantation allografts adolescent nerve block pain
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 1
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
Anterior cruciate ligament repair using hamstring autograft in children is a painful orthopedic procedure. The current practice to provide analgesia for this procedure include femoral continuous perineural infusion and femoral single shot peripheral nerve block, along with perioperative opioids and NSAIDS both IV and orally. Since the use of opioids can be associated with adverse side effects, which include, but are not limited to nausea, vomiting, constipation, pruritus and respiratory depression, comparing the amount of opioid used with either analgesia delivery method is needed.

Detailed description:
The trial design is a prospective, randomized, open-label controlled, study. It is not possible to blind the treatment since a catheter must be left in place for the continuous infusion group.

Subjects will be randomized to either the femoral shot/continuous peripheral neural infusion FS-CPNI group or femoral shot/sciatic single shot FS-SS group. After induction of general anesthesia, subjects will receive either a single shot or continuous nerve block. The protocol will not dictate the conduct of the general anesthetic.

In the postoperative period, in addition to the standard monitoring in the recovery room, the numerical rating pain scale(NRS) scores of the patient will be recorded. The timing of the first rescue pain medication and total postoperative opioid and other analgesic medication administered during the hospital stay will be recorded. The patients will be followed in the hospital on the day of surgery (DOS) postoperatively until they are discharged home.

After discharge the patients will be contacted by phone and/or email postoperatively on a daily basis for 72 hours to collect information regarding their use of pain medications (timing and dose), quality of analgesia based on the NRS pain scale, and incidence of side effects. If patients need to be admitted to the hospital postoperatively, their opioid use, pain scores and complications will be recorded while in the hospital.

All the patients will be evaluated in the orthopedic clinic at two weeks, six weeks and six months to assess long term functional outcomes, pain scores and any signs of postoperative neurological deficits.

Arms:
arm 1: a single injection peripheral nerve block (FS/SS) of the femoral and sciatic nerves, Femoral Block - 0.25% bupivacaine (0.5 ml/kg, max 40 ml). The sciatic block will be performed using 0.125% bupivacaine (0.5 ml/kg, max 20 ml). arm 2: a single injection peripheral nerve block (FS/SS) of the femoral and sciatic nerves, Femoral Block - 0.25% bupivacaine (0.5 ml/kg, max 40 ml). The sciatic block will be performed using 0.125% bupivacaine (0.5 ml/kg, max 20 ml). arm 3: The placement of a femoral continuous peripheral nerve infusion catheter (CPNI) and 0.25% bupivacaine (0.5 ml/kg, max 20 ml) will be injected under ultrasound guidance. arm 4: The placement of a femoral continuous peripheral nerve infusion catheter (CPNI) and 0.25% bupivacaine (0.5 ml/kg, max 20 ml) will be injected under ultrasound guidance.

Interventions: intervention 1: bupivacaine intervention 2: bupivacaine intervention 3: continuous perineural infusion catheter intervention 4: continuous perineural infusion catheter
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Adolescent males receive the single shot femoral and sciatic nerve blocks prior to ACL repair.

Males Single shot peripheral nerve block intervention 2: Adolescent females receive the single shot femoral and sciatic nerve blocks prior to ACL repair.

Females Single shot peripheral nerve block intervention 3: Adolescent males receive the continuous peripheral nerve block infusion catheter prior to ACL repair. intervention 4: Adolescent females receive the continuous peripheral nerve block infusion catheter prior to ACL repair.

Protocol document: