Programmed Intermittent Epidural Bolus vs. Continuous Epidural Infusion: a Multicenter, Pragmatic, Cluster-randomized Trial

BACKGROUND: The goal of Labor Epidural Analgesia (LEA) to provide optimal analgesia while limiting any impact on the course of labor. Until recently, the most common technique for epidural analgesia was a combination of continuous epidural infusion (CEI) and patient controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA). CEI delivers an infusion of local anesthetic into the epidural space at a constant rate. Programmed intermittent epidural bolus (PIEB)-a more recently-developed alternative to CEI-delivers intermittent boluses of local anesthetic into the epidural space at scheduled time intervals.

A series of randomized control trials (RCT) have compared PIEB and CEI with overall results favoring PIEB for superior analgesia. However, CEI has been shown to be associated with an increased amount of local anesthetic consumption, which may increase the degree of motor blockade, placing parturients at higher risk for instrumental and cesarean deliveries. Studies to date have offered conflicting conclusions on whether CEI is associated with a reduced rates of normal spontaneous vaginal delivery (NSVD).

AIM: The GLEAM trial aims to investigate the hypothesis that PIEB will have higher rates of NSVD than CEI. The effects of CEI vs. PIEB on cesarean delivery rate, instrumental vaginal delivery rate, length of second stage of labor, failed epidural rate.

TRIAL DESIGN: Multi-center, pragmatic, cluster-randomized trial

• Centers will be assigned to use either PIEB or CEI for the first-line labor epidural analgesia maintenance infusion for clusters of minimum one month duration
• Participating institutions will be recruited via the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP) Research Network
• Centers must use an epidural solution with a low concentration of local anesthesia with an opioid.
• Both PIEB and CEI must include PCEA - rates and volumes are determined by the institution
• Neuraxial anesthesia can be initiated with Dural Puncture Epidural (DPE), Combined Spinal Epidural (CSE) or epidural bolus
• Our sample will consist of all women, at least 18 years of age, who were admitted to the labour & delivery ward for planned vaginal delivery and had neuraxial analgesia
• Data will be collected in routine clinical care and automatically extracted from the electronic health record (EHR)