Efficacy of erector spinae plane block versus peritubal analgesic infiltration for post operative pain following percutaneous nephrolithotomy: A prospective randomized trial.

Percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) is commonly performed to treat the kidney stone. There are several effort has been done to minimise the postoperative pain such as multimodal analgesic regimens.[1-3]  Ultrasound-guided erector spinae plane block (ESPB) is a novel interfascial paraspinal plane regional anesthesia technique, which was first used by Forero et al for the treatment of severe chronic thoracic neuropathic pain.[4]. Although the majority of ESPBs described were in the thoracic region and few studies available for the lumbar region for postoperative analgesia.[5]  The studies reported that it was an effective technique for postoperative analgesia in patients having ventral hernia repair [6], breast surgery [7], laparoscopic cholecystectomy procedures [8] and PCNL[9, 10]. The peritubal infiltration along the renal capsule, subcutaneous tissue, skin and nephrostomy tube is carried out after PCNL is another effective method for postoperative analgesia.[11] There was no reported study for comparison of ESPB versus peritubal infiltration for postoperative analgesia for PCNL. The aim of this randomized, controlled, single-blinded study was to compare the analgesic efficacy of ultrasound-guided ESPB versus peritubal infiltration versus no intervention.