Erythropoietin protects against local anesthetic myotoxicity during continuous regional analgesia.

Background: Local anesthetics offer the benefits of extended analgesia with greater patient satisfaction and faster rehabilitation compared with intravenous morphine. These benefits, however, can be offset by adverse iatrogenic muscle pain caused by bupivacaine. Here, the authors describe the mechanisms of local anesthetic-induced myotoxicity and a partial protective effect of recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEPO).