Lidocaine Infusion for Postthoracotomy Pain Syndrome, A Prospective, Randomized, Double-blind, Placebo-controlled Trial (LIPPS Trial)

Postthoracotomy pain syndrome (PPS) is defined as a persistent and/or recurrent pain or burning sensation along the thoracotomy scar at 3 months after surgery. The pain is very significant, given that 3 to 5% of postthoractomy patients report it as being severe, and approximately 50% of patients report limitations in their activities of daily living. Little is known about the origin of this pain, but it seems that the intensity of acute postoperative pain is the best predictor of it. Lidocaine infusion could be a possible approach to reducing the prevalence of PPS. Recently, a meta-analysis concluded a modest but statistically significant reduction of pain severity in the first four postoperative hours measured by the visual analogue scale (mean difference, -0.84; 95% CI, -1.10 to -0.59). However, a more recent meta-analysis found that only limited clinical data and biological plausibility support lidocaine infusions for the prevention of postoperative persistent pain (odds ratio, 0.29; 95% CI, 0.18 to 0.48). This study was designed to investigate whether lidocaine infusion after video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) would lower PPS at postoperative 3 and 6 month.