Commentary: pain management in thoracic surgery should extend into late follow-up

Despite it has been described since about forty years, cryoanalgesia has never known a true soaring in the thoracic surgery practice, and its employment has long remained confined to a minority of experienced practitioners. Lying among the limitations of the present investigation by Clemence and coworkers,1 the use of cryoablation on the basis of individual surgeon's experience is the expression of such larger feature. Other drawbacks of this paper comprise the pooled analysis of patients undergoing thoracotomy and thoraco-phreno-laparotomy, the latter incision being potentially associated with pain originating from areas not addressed by cryoablation of intercostal nerves, which can yet contribute to postoperative pain scores.
Source: Seminars in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery - Category: Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgery Authors: Tags: THORACIC – Commentary Source Type: research