Conditions: Postoperative Pain Knee Replacement Arthroplasty
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 160
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
The purpose of this study is to compare two methods of postoperative pain management in patients undergoing total knee replacement.

Detailed description:
Patients undergoing total knee replacement will be assigned at random to receive one of two methods of postoperative pain management. Patients assigned to nerve block will receive regional anesthetic nerve block using an indwelling femoral nerve catheter and a single shot sciatic nerve block. Patients assigned to periarticular injection will receive periarticular local injection into the periarticular soft tissues at the time of knee replacement using a combination of ropivacaine, epinephrine, ketorolac, and morphine sulphate. Additionally, all patients will be given a standardized combination of oral analgesic medications preoperatively and postoperatively. All patients will receive a posterior stabilized total knee replacement through an medial parapatellar approach.

Arms:
arm 1: Preoperative femoral block with indwelling femoral catheter and a single shot sciatic block. arm 2: Injection combination prior to skin closure.

Interventions: intervention 1: Nerve Block intervention 2: Periarticular Injection
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Regional anesthetic nerve block using an indwelling femoral nerve catheter and a single shot sciatic nerve block using 0.5% ropivacaine. intervention 2: Periarticular local injection into the periarticular soft tissues at the time of knee replacement using a combination of ropivacaine, epinephrine, ketorolac, and morphine sulphate. Subjects in this arm received the injection combination based on three subject weight categories.

Protocol document: