Breast Surgery clinical trials at UCSD

Following painful surgical procedures of the breast, postoperative analgesia is often provided with a nerve block called a "paravertebral" block. For intense, but shorter-duration acute pain, a single-injection of numbing medicine is used which lasts about 12 hours. Recently, a new type of block has been reported: the "Pecs-2" block. The theoretical benefits include ease of administration since it is closer to the skin (less deep) compared with the paravertebral block and therefore easier to identify and target with ultrasound (therefore increasing success rate); and, a lower risk of complications. Lastly, it might be easier to insert a tiny tube which would allow additional numbing medicine to be injected. There are, therefore, multiple theoretical reasons to prefer the Pecs-2 over the paravertebral nerve block. Unfortunately, it remains unknown if the pain control provided by this new type of block is comparable to that provided with the older block. The investigators therefore propose to compare these two blocks with a clinical study.