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Departments of *Anesthesiology and
Orthopedics and Rehabilitation, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, Florida
Address correspondence and reprint requests to F. Kayser Enneking, MD, Department of Anesthesiology, PO Box 100254, Gainesville, FL 32610-0254. Address e-mail to enneking{at}ufl.edu
Although clonidine has been shown to increase the duration of local anesthetic action and prolong postoperative analgesia when included in single-injection nerve blocks, a controlled investigation of the efficacy of this practice to improve analgesia for continuous perineural local anesthetic infusion has not been reported. In this study, ambulatory patients (n = 34) undergoing moderately painful upper extremity orthopedic surgery received an infraclavicular brachial plexus block (mepivacaine 1.5%, epinephrine 2.5 µg/mL, and bicarbonate 0.1 mEq/mL) and a perineural catheter before surgery. After surgery, patients were discharged home with a portable infusion pump delivering either ropivacaine 0.2% or ropivacaine 0.2% plus clonidine 1 µg/mL via the catheter for 3 days (basal, 8 mL/h; patient-controlled bolus, 2 mL every 20 min). Investigators and patients were blinded to random group assignment. Daily end-points included pain scores, patient-controlled bolus doses, oral analgesic use, sleep quality, and symptoms of catheter- or infusion-related complications. Adding clonidine to ropivacaine resulted in a statistically significant decrease in the number of self-administered 2-mL bolus doses on postoperative Days 0 and 1 (P < 0.02), but this decreased actual local anesthetic consumption by an average of only 2–7 mL/d (P < 0.02). There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups for any of the other variables investigated, including sleep quality or oral analgesic requirements. We conclude that adding 1 µg/mL of clonidine to a ropivacaine infraclavicular perineural infusion does not provide clinically relevant improvements in analgesia, sleep quality, or oral analgesic requirements for ambulatory patients having moderately painful upper extremity surgery.
IMPLICATIONS: Clonidine is often added to long-acting local anesthetic perineural infusions in an effort to improve postoperative analgesia. This randomized, double-blinded, controlled study did not find evidence of clinically relevant benefits from adding clonidine to ropivacaine infraclavicular brachial plexus perineural infusions in ambulatory patients after moderately painful upper extremity surgery.
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