Abstract Background: Skin grafting is a very common surgical procedure, with control of early postoperative pain reported to have an impact on treatment outcome. The early postoperative recovery phase has been defined as the first 24 h or the first seven days. Bupivacaine used either as soaks for dressing or injected subcutaneously into the donor site will be a good option for early postoperative analgesia. This study aimed to compare the effect of subcutaneous injection versus topical application of bupivacaine on pain control in donor sites of patients undergoing split-thickness skin grafting in Kano, Nigeria. Materials and Methods: This was a comparative study between two groups. Group A had their donor site wounds injected subcutaneously with bupivacaine solution, whereas Group B had their donor site wounds dressed with gauze soaked in bupivacaine solution. Pain was assessed using the Visual Analogue Scale 4 h postoperatively, then continued four hourly till 24 h. Moderate-to-severe pain report in participants were given intravenous analgesics as rescue analgesia. Data obtained were analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 20.0 with the level of significance set at P < 0.05. Results: There was a statistically significant difference in the time of return of painful sensation ( P = 0.012) to the donor sites between the two groups. There was a statistically significant difference in the rescue analgesia requirement between the two groups, with a P value of 0.033. Conclusion: Use of bupivacaine either as a subcutaneous injection or topical application alleviated early postoperative pain in donor sites of split-thickness skin grafts.
Kabir et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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