Evaluation of the effect of different block techniques on open-heart surgery in the postoperative period: a prospective observational study.

Background: Open-heart surgery is associated with severe postoperative pain. Adequate analgesia after open-heart surgery improves patients' early postoperative recovery, extubation, ambulation and early discharge from hospital. Regional anaesthesia techniques are the new hope for adequate postoperative analgesia after cardiac surgery and are widely used for early pain management in the first six hours.

Methods: A total of 100 patients with the American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status classification I-III, aged 18 years and over, undergoing open-heart surgery with sternotomy for coronary artery bypass grafting or valve replacement under general anaesthesia, were included in this study. For postoperative analgesia, 50 patients with pectoral nerve (PECS II) block and 50 with parasternal (PS) block were consecutively enrolled in one of the groups at the end of the surgery and compared in terms of sedation scores, ventilation duration, pain scores at rest after extubation, block duration, total morphine consumption and complications.

Results: The block duration in the PS group was statistically significantly higher than in the PECS II group ( = 0.001, < 0.05, respectively). The visual analogue scale scores at rest in the fourth and sixth hours were statistically significantly higher in the PECS II group than in the PS group ( = 0.001, = 0.001, < 0.01). Cumulative morphine consumption in the PECS II group was statistically significantly higher than in the PS group in the fourth, sixth, 12th and 24th hours ( = 0.001, = 0.001, = 0.001, = 0.001, = 0.001, < 0.01, respectively).

Conclusions: PS block provided longer block duration with lower postoperative pain and sedation scores than the PECS II block, with lower cumulative morphine consumption.