Comparison of analgesic methods in thyroid surgery

AIM: Providing postoperative analgesia is important in terms of rapid recovery of patients and prevention of complications. In thyroid surgery, regional anesthesia techniques with intravenous analgesics are used as safe and effective methods for postoperative analgesia. There are several studies in the literature reporting that regional anesthesia methods reduce the need for intravenous opioids in the treatment of postoperative pain. The aim of our study is to investigate the efficacy of intravenous (IV) patient-controlled analgesia (PCA), SCP (superficial cervical plexus) and ESP (erector spinae plane) blocks which are postoperative analgesic methods in thyroid surgery. MATERIALS AND METHODS: After the approval of the ethics committee, in our study, among the patients who underwent thyroid surgery by the same surgical team between 01.03.2021 and 01.03.2022, 72 patients, 28 in the IV PCA group with tramadol, 23 in the SCP group and 21 in the ESP group were found. RESULTS: It was found that postoperative 24-hour mean intravenous Tramadol consumption, postoperative additional analgesic requirement, and postoperative pain levels measured at the 2nd, 6th, 12th and 24th hours were lower in Group SCP and ESP compared to the control group. There was no significant difference between the postoperative 24-hour heart rate and mean arterial pressure follow-ups of the groups. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, in our study, it was determined that bilateral SCP and ESP block techniques provided effective and safe postoperative analgesia in thyroid surgery and also provided a significant reduction in opioid consumption in the first 24 hours.