Effectiveness of Liposomal Bupivacaine Compared With Standard-of-Care Measures in Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgery: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Objective: Effective postsurgical pain management is important for pediatric patients to improve outcomes while reducing resource use and waste. The authors examined opioid consumption and economic outcomes associated with liposomal bupivacaine (LB) or non-LB analgesia use in pediatric patients undergoing cardiothoracic surgery. Design: The authors retrospectively analyzed Premier Healthcare Database records. Setting: The data extracted from the database included patient records from hospitals across the United States in both rural and urban locations. Participants: The records included data from patients aged 12-to-<18 years. Interventions: The records belonged to patients undergoing video-assisted thoracoscopic procedures (VATS) who received LB or non-LB analgesia after surgery. Measurements and Main Results: Outcomes included in-hospital postsurgical opioid consumption in morphine milligram equivalents (MMEs), hospital length of stay (LOS), and total hospital costs; the LB and non-LB cohorts were compared using a generalized linear model with inverse probability of treatment weighting to balance the cohorts. For VATS procedures, pediatric patients receiving LB had significant reductions in inhospital opioid consumption (632 v 991 MMEs; p < 0.0001), shorter LOS (5.1 v 5.6 days; p = 0.0023), and lower total hospital costs ($18,084 v $21,962; p < 0.0001) compared with those receiving non-LB analgesia. Conclusions: These results support use of LB in multimodal analgesia regimens for managing pain in pediatric patients after cardiothoracic surgery. (C) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Automated summary

The study found that in pediatric patients undergoing cardiothoracic surgery, the use of liposomal bupivacaine (LB) significantly reduced in-hospital opioid consumption, shortened hospital length of stay, and decreased total hospital costs compared to non-LB analgesia.