The Role of Regional Anesthesia to Reduce Opioid Requirements Following Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery (FESS)

Opioid analgesics are prescribed for moderate to severe acute pain; however, there are contraindications, cautions, and side effects that are common with all opioids. Dependence and tolerance are also likely with regular opioid use, resulting in the current nationwide opioid epidemic. In Alabama alone, there were 343 opioid-related overdose deaths in 2016, 124 of which were related to prescription opioids. Alabama providers have the highest prescribing rate in the country, nearly twice the national rate, per the NIH/NIDA website. In 2015, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released prescribing guidelines relating to chronic pain, and in 2018 Alabama's Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance group limited the supply of opioids allowed to their members to 7 days.

There is currently no clinical guideline for prescribing post operative opioid medications for functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS). A 2018 survey documenting prescribing patterns by 168 members of the American Rhinologic Society found that most physicians who participated prescribed, on average, 27 opioid pain pills for patients after surgery. Prior studies have been performed to help decrease the pain patient's feel after sinus surgery. Haytoglu in 2016 revealed that adding non-absorbable sinus packs loaded with local anesthetics such as bupivacaine achieved less pain values and improved patient satisfaction scores.

Given this current data the investigators believe injecting patients with a long acting analgesic during the procedure will help reduce post-operative pain. If the investigators can decrease the amount of pain patients have in the post-operative period, they can theoretically decrease the number of opioid pain pills prescribed. The investigators plan to also track the number of opioid pills consumed by patients in the post-operative period to obtain a somewhat uniform prescribing pattern within surgeons.