Regional Anesthesia for Cardiothoracic Enhanced Recovery (RACER)

Regional Anesthesia for Cardiothoracic Enhanced Recovery for Patients Undergoing Cardiac Surgery Via Sternotomy

The erector spinae plane block (ESPB) is a novel regional analgesic technique that provides pain relief with a peripheral nerve block catheter. The goal of this study is to see if bilateral ESPB catheters can improve clinical outcomes in patients undergoing cardiac surgery via sternotomy, such as decreasing the duration of postoperative mechanical ventilation, need for intravenous opioid medications, length of stay in the intensive care unit (ICU), and improving pain scores.

Study Overview

• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Conditions: Anesthesia, Local; Pain, Acute; Opioid Use; Cardiac Disease
• Intervention / Treatment: Procedure: Bilateral ESP catheter with lidocaine; Procedure: Bilateral ESP catheter with saline

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 60
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • California
    • Stanford, California, United States, 94305
      • Stanford University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 80 years (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Give consent to participate in study
• planned sternotomy
• specific procedures: CABG (coronary artery bypass grafting) or AVR (aortic valve repair or replacement) or MVR (mitral valve repair or replacement) or combination of any of 2 of these
• Primary or first redo sternotomy

Exclusion Criteria:

• Participants who cannot give consent
• Patients who are clinically unstable or require urgent/emergent intervention
• more than1 prior sternotomy
• planned aortic arch procedures
• preoperative coagulopathy (INR >1.5, PTT >35) or ongoing anticoagulation (heparin infusion, therapeutic low molecular weight heparin, warfarin, dual antiplatelet therapy)
• Severe ventricular dysfunction (left or right ventricle)
• Symptomatic heart failure (systolic or diastolic)

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Double

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Bilateral ESP catheter with Lidocaine; All participants will get the Erector Spinae Plane (ESP) catheters. Prior to transfer to the operating room, participants will receive bilateral ESP catheters at T7 level under ultrasound guidance. This arm is the treatment group and will receive lidocaine via alternating side automated infusion pump bolus dosing, continued until chest tube removal or postoperative day 5 (whichever occurs earliest).	Procedure: Bilateral ESP catheter with lidocaine; All participants will get the Erector Spinae Plane (ESP) catheters. Prior to transfer to the operating room, participants will receive bilateral ESP catheters at T7 level under ultrasound guidance. This arm is the treatment group and will receive lidocaine via alternating side automated infusion pump bolus dosing, continued until chest tube removal or postoperative day 5 (whichever occurs earliest).
Placebo Comparator: Bilateral ESP catheter with saline; All participants will get the Erector Spinae Plane (ESP) catheters. This arm is the control group and will have normal saline administered via ESP catheters, continued until chest tube removal or postoperative day 5 (whichever occurs earliest).	Procedure: Bilateral ESP catheter with saline; All participants will get the Erector Spinae Plane (ESP) catheters. This arm is the control group and will have normal saline administered via ESP catheters, continued until chest tube removal or postoperative day 5 (whichever occurs earliest).

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Opioid Consumption	IV and PO opioid requirements converted to morphine equivalent	Duration of postoperative recovery (typically 1-2 weeks)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Delirium and agitation post-operatively	Richmond Agitation-Sedation Score from -5 to +4 (-5 is the most sedation, +4 is the least sedated.	Duration of ICU stay (typically 2-5 days)
Determine post-operative pain scores	11-point numerical rating scale (NRS) from 0-10, 0 signifying no pain, 10 signifying the worse pain.	Duration of postoperative recovery (typically 1-2 weeks)
Median time to extubation in patients with ESPB	duration in mechanical ventilation in hours	Duration of postoperative recovery (typically 1-2 weeks)
Length of stay in hospital	number of post-operative days spent in hospital	Duration of postoperative recovery (typically 1-2 weeks)
Length of stay in ICU	number of post-operative days spent in ICU	Duration of postoperative recovery (typically 1-2 weeks)
Quality of recovery at 72 hours	Survey based (Quality of Recover 15) patient reported outcomes. There are 15 questions based on a scale of 0-10 per questions, 0 signifying the worst outcome, 10 signifying the best, for a score range of 0-150.	post-operative day 3
Inflammatory biomarker analysis	Pro and anti-inflammatory biomarker panel at 4 time points perioperatively. We will be analyzing IL10 concentrations as an anti-inflammatory biomarker and IL6 and TN alpha as pro-inflammatory biomarkers in either a ELISA assay or Luminex.	First panel pre-incision; second panel 6hrs (+/-3hrs) post-procedure; third panel 24hrs (+/-3hrs) post-procedure; fourth panel 48hrs (+/-3hrs) post-procedure

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Stanford University
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Ban Tsui, MD, Stanford University; Principal Investigator: Jessica Brodt, MD, Stanford University

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Forero M, Adhikary SD, Lopez H, Tsui C, Chin KJ. The Erector Spinae Plane Block: A Novel Analgesic Technique in Thoracic Neuropathic Pain. Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2016 Sep-Oct;41(5):621-7. doi: 10.1097/AAP.0000000000000451.
• Wheeler M, Oderda GM, Ashburn MA, Lipman AG. Adverse events associated with postoperative opioid analgesia: a systematic review. J Pain. 2002 Jun;3(3):159-80. doi: 10.1054/jpai.2002.123652. No abstract available.
• Gaudilliere B, Fragiadakis GK, Bruggner RV, Nicolau M, Finck R, Tingle M, Silva J, Ganio EA, Yeh CG, Maloney WJ, Huddleston JI, Goodman SB, Davis MM, Bendall SC, Fantl WJ, Angst MS, Nolan GP. Clinical recovery from surgery correlates with single-cell immune signatures. Sci Transl Med. 2014 Sep 24;6(255):255ra131. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3009701.
• Fragiadakis GK, Gaudilliere B, Ganio EA, Aghaeepour N, Tingle M, Nolan GP, Angst MS. Patient-specific Immune States before Surgery Are Strong Correlates of Surgical Recovery. Anesthesiology. 2015 Dec;123(6):1241-55. doi: 10.1097/ALN.0000000000000887.
• Kain ZN, Fitch JC, Kirsch JR, Mets B, Pearl RG. Future of anesthesiology is perioperative medicine: a call for action. Anesthesiology. 2015 Jun;122(6):1192-5. doi: 10.1097/ALN.0000000000000680. No abstract available. Erratum In: Anesthesiology. 2015 Aug;123(2):492.
• Zhu F, Lee A, Chee YE. Fast-track cardiac care for adult cardiac surgical patients. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2012 Oct 17;10:CD003587. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD003587.pub2.
• Canto M, Sanchez MJ, Casas MA, Bataller ML. Bilateral paravertebral blockade for conventional cardiac surgery. Anaesthesia. 2003 Apr;58(4):365-70. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2044.2003.03082_2.x.
• Tsui BCH, Navaratnam M, Boltz G, Maeda K, Caruso TJ. Bilateral automatized intermittent bolus erector spinae plane analgesic blocks for sternotomy in a cardiac patient who underwent cardiopulmonary bypass: A new era of Cardiac Regional Anesthesia. J Clin Anesth. 2018 Aug;48:9-10. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinane.2018.04.005. Epub 2018 May 26. No abstract available.
• Baikoussis NG, Papakonstantinou NA, Verra C, Kakouris G, Chounti M, Hountis P, Dedeilias P, Argiriou M. Mechanisms of oxidative stress and myocardial protection during open-heart surgery. Ann Card Anaesth. 2015 Oct-Dec;18(4):555-64. doi: 10.4103/0971-9784.166465.
• Giomarelli P, Scolletta S, Borrelli E, Biagioli B. Myocardial and lung injury after cardiopulmonary bypass: role of interleukin (IL)-10. Ann Thorac Surg. 2003 Jul;76(1):117-23. doi: 10.1016/s0003-4975(03)00194-2.
• Eljezi V, D'Ostrevy N. Local Anesthetic Diffusion of Bilateral Sternal Block After Cardiac Surgery. Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2017 May/Jun;42(3):418-419. doi: 10.1097/AAP.0000000000000577. No abstract available.
• Chaudhary V, Chauhan S, Choudhury M, Kiran U, Vasdev S, Talwar S. Parasternal intercostal block with ropivacaine for postoperative analgesia in pediatric patients undergoing cardiac surgery: a double-blind, randomized, controlled study. J Cardiothorac Vasc Anesth. 2012 Jun;26(3):439-42. doi: 10.1053/j.jvca.2011.10.012. Epub 2011 Dec 16.
• Olivier JF, Bracco D, Nguyen P, Le N, Noiseux N, Hemmerling T; Perioperative Cardiac Surgery Research Group (PeriCARG). A novel approach for pain management in cardiac surgery via median sternotomy: bilateral single-shot paravertebral blocks. Heart Surg Forum. 2007;10(5):E357-62. doi: 10.1532/HSF98.20071082.
• Lockwood GG, Cabreros L, Banach D, Punjabi PP. Continuous bilateral thoracic paravertebral blockade for analgesia after cardiac surgery: a randomised, controlled trial. Perfusion. 2017 Oct;32(7):591-597. doi: 10.1177/0267659117715507. Epub 2017 Jun 7.
• Svircevic V, Nierich AP, Moons KG, Diephuis JC, Ennema JJ, Brandon Bravo Bruinsma GJ, Kalkman CJ, van Dijk D. Thoracic epidural anesthesia for cardiac surgery: a randomized trial. Anesthesiology. 2011 Feb;114(2):262-70. doi: 10.1097/ALN.0b013e318201d2de.
• Chakravarthy M, Thimmangowda P, Krishnamurthy J, Nadiminti S, Jawali V. Thoracic epidural anesthesia in cardiac surgical patients: a prospective audit of 2,113 cases. J Cardiothorac Vasc Anesth. 2005 Feb;19(1):44-8. doi: 10.1053/j.jvca.2004.11.008.
• Kose HC, Kose SG, Thomas DT. Lumbar versus thoracic erector spinae plane block: Similar nomenclature, different mechanism of action. J Clin Anesth. 2018 Aug;48:1. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinane.2018.03.026. Epub 2018 Apr 9. No abstract available.
• Wong J, Navaratnam M, Boltz G, Maeda K, Ramamurthi RJ, Tsui BCH. Bilateral continuous erector spinae plane blocks for sternotomy in a pediatric cardiac patient. J Clin Anesth. 2018 Jun;47:82-83. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinane.2018.03.020. Epub 2018 Apr 6. No abstract available.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): January 1, 2020
• Primary Completion (Actual): September 30, 2021
• Study Completion (Estimated): December 1, 2023

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: December 18, 2018
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 18, 2018
• First Posted (Actual): December 19, 2018

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): September 22, 2023
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 20, 2023
• Last Verified: September 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Cardiovascular Diseases; Pain; Neurologic Manifestations; Heart Diseases; Acute Pain; Physiological Effects of Drugs; Molecular Mechanisms of Pharmacological Action; Anti-Arrhythmia Agents; Central Nervous System Depressants; Peripheral Nervous System Agents; Sensory System Agents; Anesthetics; Membrane Transport Modulators; Anesthetics, Local; Voltage-Gated Sodium Channel Blockers; Sodium Channel Blockers; Lidocaine
• Other Study ID Numbers: 47647

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No