The Effect of Pretreatment With Intravenous Lidocaine for Intravenous Contrast: A Double-blinded, Randomized-control Trial

STUDY DESIGN Subjects: Patients aged from 7 to 17 years-old who present to the Maimonides Medical Center's Emergency Department that require a CT scan with IV contrast. Research team members will be notified when the patient requires CT scan with IV contrast and meets the eligibility criteria. Potential subjects will be recruited in the Emergency Department

Eligibility Criteria: Inclusion criteria: Patients with age of 7 to 17 years-old who require a CT scan with IV contrast. Exclusion criteria: Patients with history of seizures, cardiovascular disease, presenting as a trauma, a history of anaphylaxis to lidocaine, or children/adolescents with underlying neurodevelopmental conditions which would interfere with their ability to respond to pre and post IV contrast pain assessments.

Design: This is a prospective, double-blinded randomized control study that will be comparing intravenous lidocaine to a placebo. Patients will be randomized with block randomization. The randomization list will be generated EM Research Manager and given to the EM pharmacist a priori of commencement of the study. The EM Research Manager and EM Pharmacist are not blinded to the study. Once a potential subject has been identified, a member of the research team will obtain consent from the parent or guardian of the subject. The research team member involved with consent and data collection, provider, and subject will all be blinded to which treatment arm they are assigned.

The research team members will monitor each patient and in conjunction with the pharmacy will deliver the assigned treatment to the subject's nurse to administer 10 min prior to the CT scan. If selected for the treatment group, the patient will receive a 1mg/kg IV dose of lidocaine with a max dose of 40mg.15 A patient selected to the control group will an equal volume of normal saline infused. A research team member will be present during the administration of assigned treatment until the completion of the CT scan. The patient will be placed on a cardiopulmonary monitor for the duration of this period. Advanced airway equipment, IV midazolam, and IV intralipids will also be available at bedside during infusion and until completion of CT scan to treat any potential adverse effect associated with lidocaine.

Nominal variables to be collected include gender, chief complaint, pain score at triage, use of pain medication at triage and during the ED course, diagnosis, type of CT scan performed, pre and post-intervention pain score, post-intervention pruritus score, post-intervention burning pain score. The only continuous variable being collected includes age (in years-old).