Comparative Assessment of Effectiveness and Safety of L-ESPB Versus Absence of Locoregional Block in Hip Surgery

Hip surgery accounts for a high percentage of both emergency and elective surgical procedures in hospitals. Regardless of surgery being prescribed to treat a fracture or coxarthrosis, patients are usually elderly with multiple associated comorbidities. When faced with this patient profile, there is a tendency to undertreat pain for fear of the side effects and pharmacological interactions of conventional analgesic drugs.

Ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia applied in orthopedic and trauma surgery has been shown to reduce the doses of opioids and conventional analgesics, to ease deambulation and early recovery, to improve respiratory dynamics and to reduce vein thrombosis and pneumonias. Our study aims to verify whether L-ESP block is effective in the hip and proximal femur surgeries and allows to lower the dosage of opioids in these patients.