A Clinical Comparison of Intravenous and Epidural Local Anesthetic for Major Abdominal Surgery

Abstract

Patients who received systemic lidocaine infusions with the addition of PRN (as needed) opioids administered for breakthrough pain did not have clinically significant differences in pain scores on postoperative day 2 and beyond. Intravenous lidocaine infusion in major abdominal surgery was inferior to epidural analgesia with respect to opioid consumption. However, lidocaine was associated with improvements in several important aspects of recovery.