Pain Management Following Total Hip Arthroplasty

Plain-language summary

Total hip arthroplasty (THA) is a common and standardized procedure. Postoperative mortality after hip joint replacement is low but some complications remain, including chronic post-surgical pain (1), hip dislocation (2), infection (3), and deep vein thrombosis (4). Strategies that have been identified to reduce morbidity and mortality include: posterior surgical approach, mechanical and pharmacological prophylaxis of deep vein thrombosis, and the use of spinal anesthesia (5). One of the important factors for patient satisfaction with lower limb arthroplasty is good postoperative pain management (6). Poorly managed postoperative pain can lead to chronic post-surgical pain and therefore aggressive postoperative pain management is important (7). Several different methods have been used to treat postoperative pain following THA. Recently, local infiltration analgesia (LIA) using a combination of large volume local anesthetics (LA) and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents (NSAID) injected systematically peri-articularly has been used for pain management with variable success (8). We found that better analgesia could be achieved when using LIA compared to intrathecal morphine during the first few days postoperatively (9,10). Ultrasound techniques are commonly used for peripheral nerve blocks and have been shown to reduce pain intensity and may be considered by many to be a standard of care. Specifically, the 3-in-1 block has been commonly used because of its ease of application and good pain management following total hip arthroplasty. The present study aims to compare postoperative pain intensity following local infiltration analgesia with a standardised 3-in-1 block for total hip arthroplasty.

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