Mr Austin Acheson, Associate Professor/Consultant Colorectal Surgeon, Nottingham University Hospitals
Keyhole (or laparoscopic) surgery for bowel disease (KSBD) has brought great benefits, enabling patients to recover quicker from surgery and so return sooner to normal activities. Although KSBD produces less pain than conventional bowel surgery, it still causes enough pain to necessitate strong pain-killing medications such as morphine-like drugs. These, although good pain killers, often have a detrimental effect on the recovery of bowel function, leading to feelings of nausea and vomiting and ultimately delaying recovery. These side-effects reduce the potential benefits from KSBD and current “fast-track” recovery programmes.
This project aims to assess the efficacy of a new method of pain control during KSBD. The study involves injecting local anaesthetic into the abdominal muscles once the patient is anaesthetised. Although use of local anaesthetic is common practice, we are looking at a new technique of injecting it which will attempt to block the pain nerves to the abdomen prior to the start of the operation.
We will investigate whether this new technique reduces the amount of pain following KSBD. If it does, it can be used to enhance patients’ recovery after KSBD.
This page was last updated on 20-07-2011