Evaluation of Ultrasound-Guided Transversus Abdominis Plane Block for Postoperative Analgesia in Patients Undergoing Intraperitoneal Onlay Mesh Repair

INTRODUCTION: Ventral hernia is a commonly performed surgical procedure in adults. Laparoscopic intraperitoneal onlay mesh repair (IPOM) of ventral hernia is procedure of choice. IPOM of ventral hernia is associated with significant pain. Hence, our aim was to study the efficacy of instilling preemptive local analgesia for reducing postoperative pain in patients undergoing laparoscopic ventral hernia repairs. OBJECTIVE: To study the role of local infiltration of 10 ml of 0.5% ropivacaine in the anterior abdominal wall preoperatively to improve pain scores compared to conventional intravenous systemic analgesia. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study pool consists of two groups of patients (25 in each group) admitted for laparoscopic uncomplicated ventral hernia repair. Analysis was performed by the SPSS program (Company – International Business Machines Corporation, headquartered at Armonk, New York, USA) for Windows, version 17.0. Normally distributed continuous variables were compared using ANOVA. Categorical variables were analyzed using the Chi-square test. RESULTS: Both groups were matching in terms of demographic features. Postoperatively, pain assessment was performed every 30 min for the first 2 h and was followed up for a period of 24 h at intervals (4, 6, 12, and 24 h). Postoperatively, patients were also assessed for time of ambulation, time of return of bowel sounds at 6, 12, and 24 h, and length of hospital stay. Side effects and complication were noted. CONCLUSION: Our study demonstrated that supplementing US-guided transversus abdominis plane (TAP) block to conventional systemic analgesics resulted in decreased VAS scores and decreased requirement of rescue analgesics. The patients ambulated early had earlier appearance of bowel sounds and decreased length of hospital stay. There was also decreased incidence of nausea and vomiting. TAP block for laparoscopic IPOM surgery significantly decreases postoperative pain and opioid requirement in patients.