Analgesic efficacy of rhomboid intercostal block compared with thoracic paravertebral block in adult patients undergoing breast cancer surgeries: a randomized controlled double-blinded study

Postoperative pain is a significant problem following breast surgery . If not treated in time, it may lead to delayed wound healing, respiratory depression, hemodynamic disorders, anxiety,other complications, and finally lead to difficult recovery of patients . Therefore, the prevention of postoperative pain is of great importance for patients. Opioids, while effective in pain management, are linked to a spectrum of adverse effects, including respiratory depression, post-operative nausea and vomiting, pruritus and constipation. The adoption of multimodal analgesia following breast cancer surgery emerges as a pivotal strategy to mitigate the complications associated with opioid use in the postoperative period.\[4\] US-guided rhomboid intercostal block (US-RIB) is a new fascial block technique discovered by Elsharkawy et al in 2016. Injection of local anaesthetic into the fascial plane between rhomboid major and intercostal muscles provided analgesia for both the anterior and posterior hemithorax,targets the lateral cutaneous branches of the ventral rami of the thoracic intercostal nerves from T2 to T9. Some clinical studies have reported that RIB can effectively reduce postoperative pain, reduce opioid consumption and improve the quality of recovery in patients with breast cancer surgeries . The ultrasound guided Thoracic paravertebral (TPV) block in the context of breast cancer surgery has been reported to decrease postoperative pain score up to 72 hours, reduce opioid consumption, improve the quality of recovery, and suppress the development or decrease the severity of chronic pain by anesthetizing the spinal nerves as they emerge from the intervertebral foramina, producing ipsilateral somatosensory, visceral and sympathetic nerve blockade. TPV block involves the injection of local anesthetic (LA) into the wedge-shaped paravertebral space deep to the superior costotransverse ligament (SCTL). In our study investigators hypothesized that the Rhomboid Intercostal block (RIB) can provide an effective analgesia comparable with thoracic paravertebral (TPV) block without the necessity to approach the pleura and the attendant risks in adult patients undergoing Breast cancer surgeries.