Comparisons Between Low Thoracic and Lumbar Epidural Analgesia on Postoperative Pain Low Thoracic v.s. Lumbar Epidural for Post-cesarean Pain

Comparisons Between Low Thoracic and Lumbar Epidural Analgesia on Postoperative Pain Management Qualities After Cesarean Delivery: a Randomized Controlled Trial

Status

Completed

Phases

Study type

Interventional

Source

ClinicalTrials.gov

Registry ID

NCT03946982

Enrollment

189

Registered

2019-05-13

Start date

2019-05-28

Completion date

2021-04-30

Last updated

2021-06-30

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Post-cesarean Pain Control Quality

Keywords

Patient controlled epidural analgesia ,Cesarean delivery,pain management,epidural opioid

Brief summary

Whether low thoracic epidural analgesia improves postoperative cesarean pain qualities than conventional lumbar epidural analgesia?

Detailed description

Postoperative pain remains the leading cause of concern in women faced with undergoing a cesarean delivery. Inadequate acute pain management is associated with numerous negative effects, including delayed postpartum recovery, interference with mother-child bonding because postoperative pain limits breastfeeding, and a high risk of postpartum depression and persistent pain. Epidural analgesia (EA) is being increasingly preferred to systemic opioid because of better analgesic effect. Although EA is widely used for cesarean delivery, the effect of the site of epidural catheter insertion on the quality of postoperative pain management remains inadequately investigated. For example, placement of the epidural catheter in the low thoracic intervertebral spaces may be more suitable for catheter-incision-congruent analgesia during caesarean delivery than in the lumbar intervertebral space; however, epidural catheter insertion is conventionally recommended at the lumbar intervertebral space. Therefore, in this study, we aim to investigate the difference in post-cesarean pain control quality between low thoracic EA and lumbar EA.

Interventions

PROCEDURElow thoracic epidural

obstetric epidural catheters inserted at low thoracic intervertebral spaces

PROCEDURElumbar epidural

obstetric epidural catheters inserted at low thoracic intervertebral spaces (conventional)

Study design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Intervention model

PARALLEL

Primary purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

DOUBLE (Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

FEMALE

Age

20 Years to 50 Years

Healthy volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Inclusion: 1. age between 20-yr and 50-yr parturients 2. elective cesarean delivery Exclusion: 1. contraindicated to regional anesthesia, eg. coagulopathy (INR\> 1.5; platelet\< 80000...etc) 2. significant co-morbidities, eg. preeclamspia, heart failure with New York Heart Association (NYHA) Classification\> class 2 3. allergy to opioids or local anesthetics

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame	Description
Proportion of women with a visual analogue scale> 33 mm	postoperative two days	—
Pain intensity	postoperative two days	pain intensities in three category, namely static, dynamic and uterine cramping, gauged by a 100 mm visual analogue scale

Secondary

Measure	Time frame	Description
Adverse effects	postoperative two days	Incidences of epidural-related adverse effects including sedation states, sensory blockade, motor blockade, pruritus, nausea and vomiting

Countries

Taiwan

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Data processed: Feb 4, 2026