Thoracic Epidural Analgesia in Flail Chest

Pain due to traumatic rib fractures may be associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Fracture ribs cause severe pain that adversely affects patients' ability to cough and breathe deeply, that may lead to decreased ventilator efforts, atelectasis, pneumonia and finally respiratory failure. That further results in longer intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital length of stay and higher mortality. Effective pain relief, chest physiotherapy and respiratory care are the points of management. Effective analgesia enables the patient to breathe deeply, cough out the secretions and comply with chest physiotherapy. Multiple pain relief treatment options are available, such as oral analgesics, intravenous opioids, patient-controlled opioid analgesia, interpleural blocks, intercostals blocks, para vertebral blocks, and epidural analgesia Recent studies reported that epidural analgesia reduces morbidity after major thoracic, abdominal and vascular surgeries, but in patients with rib fractures, Successful treatment for rib fracture pain usually requires both pharmacologic and interventional approaches .Single modality treatment, which may incite respiratory depression, is suboptimal in these patients, many of whom already manifest a compromised respiratory system. Interventional procedures, while opioid sparing, carry their own inherent risks. Intercostals nerve blocks may not be feasible in the setting of multiple rib fractures, because of patient discomfort and the risk of local aesthetic toxicity. Use of an epidural catheter with continuous infusion of local anaesthetics and opioids may pose challenges in a community hospital setting, as 24 hours in-house coverage is often unavailable. While single-shot thoracic epidural steroid injections have been used for herniated intervertebral discs, herpes zoster pain, and post herpetic neuralgia (PHN), their use in patients with rib fracture pain has not been previously reported in the literature. An epidural steroid injection delivers steroids directly into the epidural space in the spine. Sometimes additional fluid (local aesthetic and/or a normal saline solution) is used to help 'flush out' inflammatory mediators from around the area that may be a source of pain ..Typically, a solution containing cortisone (steroid) with local aesthetic (lidocaine or bupivacaine), and/or saline is used.A steroid, or cortisone, is usually injected as an anti-inflammatory agent. Inflammation is a common component of many low back conditions and reducing inflammation helps reduce pain. Triamcinolone acetonide, Dexamethasone, and Methyl prednisolone acetate are commonly used steroids.