Comparison of the Effects of Opioid-Based Intravenous Patient Controlled Analgesia and Continuous Ropivacaine Infusion Through Wound Catheters After Repair of Pectus Excavatum

Pain control is an important issue after correction of pectus excavatum. Insufficient pain control leads to develop postoperative pulmonary complications, such as hypoxia, atelectasis and pneumonia. Additionally, hospital length of stay could be prolonged. Therefore, successful pain management is mandatory to improve clinical outcome, to decrease postoperative morbidity and to shorten the duration of hospital stay. Various methods of pain management have been introduced. Current typical methods for pain management include thoracic epidural analgesia and intravenous patient-controlled analgesia (IV PCA). Epidural analgesia has shown superior pain control effects. However, there may be rare but serious complications, such as spinal cord and nerve root lesions, epidural hematoma, or infections. IV PCA is a well-established method of postoperative pain management. However, the systemic side effects of opioid, such as nausea, vomiting, sedation, or respiratory depression may occur. Continuous wound infusion of local anesthetics through ON-Q catheters is another method for pain management. It has been used for various surgical procedures. However, the effect is not well evaluated in pectus surgery. The purpose of this study is to compare the effects of opioid-based IV PCA and continuous wound infusion using a catheter.