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Review
. 2020 Oct 23:13:159-169.
doi: 10.2147/LRA.S272694. eCollection 2020.

Interfascial Plane Blocks and Laparoscopic Abdominal Surgery: A Narrative Review

James Harvey Jones  1 , Robin Aldwinckle  1
Affiliations
Review

Interfascial Plane Blocks and Laparoscopic Abdominal Surgery: A Narrative Review

James Harvey Jones et al. Local Reg Anesth. .

Abstract

Laparoscopic abdominal surgery has become a mainstay of modern surgical practice. Postoperative analgesia is an integral component of recovery following laparoscopic abdominal surgery and may be improved by regional anesthesia or intravenous lidocaine infusion. There is inconsistent evidence supporting the use of interfascial plane blocks, such as transversus abdominis plane (TAP) blocks, for patients undergoing laparoscopic abdominal surgery as evidenced by variable patterns of local anesthetic spread and conflicting results from studies comparing TAP blocks to local anesthetic infiltration of laparoscopic port sites and multimodal analgesia. Quadratus lumborum (QL) and erector spinae plane (ESP) blocks may provide greater areas of somatic analgesia as well as visceral analgesia, which may translate to more significant clinical benefits. Aside from the locations of the surgical incisions, it is unclear what other factors should be considered when choosing one regional technique over another or deciding to infuse lidocaine intravenously. We reviewed the current literature in attempt to clarify the roles of various regional anesthesia techniques for patients undergoing laparoscopic abdominal surgery and present one possible approach to evaluating postoperative pain.

Keywords: interfascial plane block; laparoscopic abdominal surgery; pain; transversus abdominis plane block.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest for this work.

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