Regional anesthesia is safe for use in intramedullary nailing of low-energy tibial shaft fractures

Purpose The purpose was to compare perioperative outcomes of patients who underwent general or regional anesthesia for intramedullary (IM) nailing of tibial shaft fractures (TSFs). Methods Retrospective chart review was performed on a consecutive series of low-energy TSF patients who presented to a single academic medical center and a level 1 trauma center who underwent operative repair with a reamed IM nail. Collected information included demographics, injury information, anesthesia type (general or regional i.e. peripheral nerve block), intra-operative opiate consumption (converted to morphine milliequivalents [MME], and post-operative pain visual-analog scale [VAS] pain scores. Patients were divided into 3 groups based on the type of anesthesia received and univariate analysis was performed to compare the 3 groups. Results Seventy-six patients were included, with an average age of 44.47±16.0 years. There were 38 (50%) who were administered general anesthesia and 38 (50%) who were administered regional anesthesia in the form of a peripheral nerve block. There were no differences between the groups with respect to demographics, medical co-morbidities, rate of open fractures or AO/OTA fracture classification. Regional anesthesia patients received less intra-operative MME than general anesthesia patients (17.57±10.6, 28.96±13.8, p<0.001). Patients who received regional anesthesia also spent less time in the operating room, received less MME on post-operative day 1, and ambulated further on post-operative day 1, however none of these differences were statistically significant. There were no cases of missed post-operative compartment syndrome or complications related to the administration of the peripheral nerve block. Conclusions Regional anesthesia in TSF surgery received less intra-operative opioid requirements, without any untoward effects.