Clinical Effectiveness of Pre-incision Versus Post-incision Local Anesthetic During Laparoscopic/Robotic Sacrocolpopexy

Pelvic organ prolapse is becoming more common as women's life expectancy is increasing and the prevalence of obesity is rising. Many women undergo pelvic reconstructive surgery to treat their prolapse and improve their quality of life. The incidence of pelvic organ prolapse is 1.5-1.8 surgeries per 1,000 women years. Approximately 300,000 pelvic reconstructive surgeries are performed each year in the United States. There is a wide variety in surgical approaches and procedures for prolapse. One such procedure is a sacrocolpopexy in which the cervix or vaginal cuff is lifted to the anterior longitudinal ligament overlying the sacrum via a mesh graft. This can be done in a minimally invasive fashion with a laparoscopic or robotic approach or in an open abdominal approach. Numerous studies have shown this procedure to have a high success rate and long-term durability. As robotic/laparoscopic approach to surgery has shown shorter hospital-stays and improved patient outcomes, the robotic-assisted sacrocolpopexy has been rapidly incorporated into clinical practice.

In general, surgery causes a release of painful chemical mediators which has led to increased narcotic use, increased narcotic addiction, and number of pills prescribed. Most individuals who undergo surgery will require narcotics postoperatively to control their pain and some individuals have to extend their hospital stay until adequate pain control is achieved. Our study is aimed to reduce narcotic use, decrease hospital stay due to pain issues and determine if timing of adjunct pain medication improves pain scales for patients.

As postoperative pain after minimally invasive surgery is complex, specialists suggest that the effective analgesic treatment should be a multimodal approach. Use of local anesthetic with bupivacaine at robotic/laparoscopic trocar sites is the standard of care, however, there is no standard as to optimal timing that is most beneficial for patients to decrease pain. Currently, bupivacaine is used by providers at the trocar sites at either the beginning of the case or at the end of the case. From clinical observation, it appears that postoperative pain levels reported from patients receiving either at the beginning of surgery (pre-) or end (post-incision) of the surgery are similar. This study aims to examine the difference in postoperative day one pain levels reported by patients between the two infiltration methods