Parasternal Intercostal Nerve Block and Chronic Pain After Cardiac Surgery
Not yet recruitingNot applicableNCT07818512
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This study has no listed site in Canada in this snapshot. It is included as part of the worldwide chronic pain corpus.
Brief summary (from the registry)
Chronic post-sternotomy pain is a common but under-recognised complication of cardiac surgery, reported in roughly 11 to 56 percent of patients and capable of persisting for years after the operation. Effective control of pain in the early postoperative period is thought to reduce the central sensitisation that drives the transition from acute to chronic pain. This single-centre, prospective, randomised, patient- and assessor-blinded controlled trial investigates whether an ultrasound-guided bilateral parasternal intercostal nerve block, performed preemptively after induction of general anaesthesia and before surgical incision, reduces the incidence of chronic pain three months after cardiac surgery performed through a median sternotomy. A total of 132 adults scheduled for elective cardiac surgery will be randomised in a 1:1 ratio to receive either the block plus the institution's standard multimodal analgesia protocol, or the standard protocol alone. The primary endpoint is the incidence of chronic post-sternotomy pain at three months, assessed with the Turkish version of the Brief Pain Inventory - Short Form. Secondary endpoints cover acute pain scores, opioid consumption, postoperative nausea and vomiting, and complications.
Study details
- Official title
- Effect of Ultrasound-Guided Preemptive Parasternal Intercostal Nerve Block on the Incidence of Chronic Pain After Cardiac Surgery Via Sternotomy: A Prospective Randomized Controlled Trial
- Conditions
- Chronic Postoperative Pain
- Chronic Post-Sternotomy Pain
- Cabg
- Sternotomy
- Interventions
- Procedure: Ultrasound-Guided Parasternal Intercostal Nerve Block
- Drug: Bupivacaine 0.25%
- Sponsor
- Bakirkoy Dr. Sadi Konuk Research and Training Hospital
- Start date
- 2026-09-28
- Primary completion
- 2027-11-25
- Sex
- All
- Age range
- from 18 Years to 75 Years
- Results posted
- No results posted in this snapshot
- Total sites listed
- 0
Eligibility criteria
Show eligibility criteria (verbatim from the registry)
Inclusion Criteria: * Age between 18 and 75 years * Scheduled for elective cardiac surgery via median sternotomy * Able to understand and use the Numeric Rating Scale for pain * Willing to participate and able to provide written informed consent Exclusion Criteria: * Surgery planned by a minimally invasive or thoracoscopic approach * Refusal to participate * Known allergy to the local anaesthetics or analgesics to be used * Chronic opioid use * Coagulopathy * Infection at the planned block site * Pregnancy or lactation * Inability to communicate or to score pain reliably * Psychiatric or neurological condition preventing reliable completion of the BPI-SF and NRS assessments
Source: ClinicalTrials.gov (US National Library of Medicine), snapshot October 2026. Check the registry for current recruiting status. Record: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT07818512