The goal of this retrospective study was to compare two different processes of pain control after total knee arthroplasty (TKA): local anesthesia versus femoral nerve block. The tested hypothesis was that the patient's ability to be discharged was obtained sooner with the local anesthesia process. 110 patients consecutively operated on for TKA by a single surgeon without any selection criterion were included. The study group included 58 patients operated on under general anesthesia with infiltration of the surgical field with local anesthesia. The control group included 52 patients operated on under general anesthesia and continuous femoral nerve block. In the study group, 200 ml of ropivacaïne 5% were injected into the surgical field, and an intra-articular catheter was left to allow continuous infusion of ropivacaïne (20 ml/h during 24 hours). The control group was treated by a femoral nerve block with ropivacaïne during 24 hours. Discharge was considered allowed when the patient was able to walk independently, go upstairs and downstairs independently, when the knee flexed over 90° and if the subjective pain assessment (VAS) was under 3/10.Objectives
Methods
