Dexamethasone or Dexmedetomidine as Adjunct in Fascia Iliaca Block During Positioning for Sub-arachnoid Block & Post-operative Analgesia After Femur Neck Fracture Surgery: A Randomized Control Trial

Phase 4

• Conditions: Post Operative Pain
• Interventions: Drug: Dexamethasone; Drug: Dexmedetomidine

• Registration Number: NCT05484648
• Lead Sponsor: Aga Khan University Hospital, Pakistan

Brief Summary

Femur fracture is a common injury occurring in the young due to trauma as well as amongst the elderly due to fall. Reduction and fixation of femur fractures pose a challenge to the anesthesiologist. These fractures are intensely painful as the pain arises from the periosteum and even slight movement can cause muscle forces to angulate and deform the fractured fragments which apart from causing extreme pain also make the reduction of the fracture quite difficult. Sub-arachnoid block (SAB) is a commonly used technique for lower-limb surgeries. It provides excellent surgical anesthesia and is a largely safe and reliable anesthetic technique. However, for femur fracture repair, positioning the patient for SAB not only causes extreme pain but it also makes administration of SAB difficult due to inappropriate position. Another limitation of SAB is its limited duration of action. Hence, conventional pain management modalities which include opioids and NSAIDs are used to manage pain before and during the administration of SAB and during the post-operative period. These conventional pain management drugs are associated with significant adverse effects and should be used with caution especially in the elderly with multiple comorbids.

Recently, fascia iliaca block (FICB) has been used not only as part of multi-modal peri-operative analgesic regime for femur fractures but also to provide adequate analgesia for appropriate SAB positioning. FICB fills the plane underneath the fascia iliaca with local anesthetic and acts on the femoral, lateral femoral cutaneous and obturator nerves and thus provides adequate analgesia for femur fractures for up to 24-48 hours. FICB is also associated with less side effects when compared to conventional pain management modalities and provides adequate unilateral analgesia with fewer autonomic and neurological complications when compared with epidural analgesia.

Traditionally, local anesthetics have been used for most of the peripheral nerve blocks (PNB), however multiple adjuncts such as opioids, ketamine and clonidine have been used to prolong the duration of action as well as decrease the local anesthetic dosage. Among the adjuncts, dexamethasone has been used to generally favorable results in PNBs. Dexmedetomidine is another promising drug being used as a local anaesthetic adjuvant in peripheral nerve blocks. It is an alpha-2 agonist, which has shown to have prolonged duration of postoperative analgesia when given with LA for peripheral nerve blocks with other beneficial effects such as reducing the opioid consumption.

In this study, the investigators compare dexamethasone with dexmedetomidine as an adjunct when combined with ropivacaine in FICB.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Status Verified: 2022-07
• Study First Submitted: 2022-07-24
• Study First Submitted QC: 2022-07-31
• Last Update Submitted: 2022-07-31
• Study First Posted: 2022-08-02
• Last Update Posted: 2022-08-02
• Study Start: 2023-01-01
• Primary Completion: 2023-12-31
• Study Completion: 2023-12-31

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: UNKNOWN
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 60

Inclusion Criteria

• Age group (18-80)
• Undergoing elective/emergency femur fracture repair under sub-arachnoid block
• ASA status I-III

Exclusion Criteria

• Participation in any other trial
• Known hypersensitivity to study medications
• Seizure disorder
• Coagulation disorder
• Infection over injection site
• Hemodynamic Instability
• Concurrent medications use that is contraindicated with study medications

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Group A	Dexamethasone	Patients allocated to group A will receive ultrasound guided FICB with 0.375% ropivacaine 38 cc along with 8 mg dexamethasone in 2cc making a total injection volume of 40 cc.
Group B	Dexmedetomidine	Patients allocated to group B will receive ultrasound guided FICB with 0.375% ropivacaine 38 cc along with 1 µg/kg dexmedetomidine in 2cc dilution making a total injection volume of 40 cc.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Pain score after fascia iliaca block placement	Static Pain (at 10 minutes after placement of block.	Static pain will be recorded at 10-minute interval with the help of Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) of 0 to 10 (with 0 being no pain at all and 10 being worst imaginable pain).
Pain score during positioning of patient for sub-arachnoid block	Dynamic Pain during positioning for sub-arachnoid block	After 15 minutes of fascia iliaca block placement, patients will be positioned for sub-arachnoid block. At this point, dynamic pain will be recorded with the help of Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) of 0 to 10 (with 0 being no pain at all and 10 being worst imaginable pain).

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Duration of postoperative analgesia	Till 24 hours post surgery	This will be measured by the demand to first rescue analgesic
Post-operative Pain	24 hours after surgery	Post-operative pain will be assessed via the Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) of 0 to 10 (with 0 being no pain at all and 10 being worst imaginable pain).
Patient Satisfaction	24 hours after surgery	Patient satisfaction would be assessed via the Likert Scale