Erector spinae plane block with ropivacaine 0.2% in children: a single-centre case series in a tertiary paediatric centre in Malaysia

Abstract

Erector spinae plane block (ESPB) was first described in 2016 by Forero et al. as a modified interfascial plane block used for patients with chronic neuropathic thoracic pain. It was applied in the paediatric population for postoperative pain management as early as 2017. Most evidence on the efficacy of ESPB as postoperative analgesia in the literature is mainly found in case reports, but very few trials had been conducted. This case series describes 4 paediatric patients who received ESPB as part of multimodal analgesia while undergoing different types of surgery,i.e., 1 Kasai procedure, 1 closure of stoma, and 2 thoracotomies. All 4 patients had general anaesthesia for the surgery. No complications were observed in relation to the regional anaesthetic technique. Pain control was achieved with a pain score of 0–2 for 3 patients and 2–4 for 1 patient (thoracotomy) on Day 1 postoperatively, while all of them a had pain score of 0–2 on postoperative Day 2. We found ESPB with ropivacaine 0.2% to be a safe and effective analgesia as part of multimodal management of postoperative surgical pain. Further studies are needed to validate this observation.