For perioperative analgesia in thoracic surgery, epidural anesthesia has long been considered the gold standard. However, as surgical techniques have become less invasive, interest in less invasive analgesic strategies has increased. According to the procedure-specific postoperative pain management (PROSPECT) guidelines published by the European Society of Regional Anesthesia in 2021, epidural anesthesia is no longer recommended as the method of choice for regional anesthesia in video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS), and thoracic paravertebral block (TPVB) and erector spinae plane block (ESPB) are now recommended. Understanding the effectiveness and limitations of each regional technique is essential to facilitating appropriate anesthetic planning for individual cases. This narrative review summarizes current evidence regarding thoracic epidural anesthesia, TPVB, ESPB, serratus anterior plane block, and emerging intertransverse process block techniques for thoracic surgery.
Yasuhiro Morimoto (Fri,) studied this question.
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