Outcomes of Thoracoabdominal Nerve Block Through Perichondrial Approach* on Postoperative Cognitive Functions

Postoperative pain management after major surgical operations is a very important issue. Features such as waking up without pain, early recovery from anesthesia, not suppressing respiration by the drugs used for postoperative pain treatment, not delaying recovery from anesthesia, not having unwanted side effects, and not delaying discharge from the intensive care unit are the desired features of postoperative pain management. A wide variety of drug therapy modalities are available for this purpose. However, peripheral nerve blocks are widely used to minimize undesirable effects of drug therapy. TAP block (trans abdominal plane block) has been used for this purpose since ancient times. TAPA block (thoracoabdominal block with perichondral approach) is a newly developed plane block and was developed to obtain higher level block with a single injection. In this study, we planned to compare the recovery times from anesthesia, postoperative pain scores, opioid consumption, and cognitive functions of patients who underwent TAPA block for postoperative pain treatment and patients who were not preferred to TAPA block and were planned for pain treatment with conventional methods, whether these treatments affected or not.

Neuropsychological dysfunction is a frequently encountered condition after surgery. Postoperative cognitive dysfunction can affect various cognitive functions such as attention, memory, and information processing speed. The most notable symptoms are memory deficits and decreased ability to cope with intellectual difficulties. It has been stated that postoperative cognitive dysfunction depends on advanced age, duration of anesthesia, development of complications, pre-existing cognitive disorders, and education level.

In a study, it was reported that the incidence of postoperative cognitive dysfunction in patients aged around 60 years who underwent major noncardiac surgery was 25.8% after 1 week and 9.9% after 3 months.

In the literature, it has been mentioned that inflammatory processes that occur as a result of surgical trauma and subsequent complications play a role in cognitive dysfunction. Normal cognitive functions can be maintained in low-level inflammatory processes, while very high-level proinflammatory factors can significantly affect cognitive functions.

Traditional lateral TAP block is performed on the midaxillary line between the iliac crest and subcostal. With this approach, with cadaveric dye injection, T11 was shown to be maintained and T12 was maintained 100% time, L1 93% time and T10 50% time. The lateral TAP block reached a dermatome high enough to benefit the patient after open cholecystectomy.

The TAPA block is performed at the rib margin where the 9th and 10th ribs meet. A linear transducer is placed at the costochondral angle in the sagittal plane. It is carried out by injecting 20 ml of drug between the upper and lower surface of the chondrium. The authors state that TAPA block provides analgesia to T5-T12. They hypothesize that the TAPA block numbs both the lateral cutaneous branch and the anterior region.

Although the standardized mini-mental test is not a definitive diagnostic test, it is used by clinicians as an auxiliary test to measure the degree of cognitive deterioration of patients.

We planned this study to compare the recovery times from anesthesia, postoperative pain scores, opioid consumption, and cognitive functions of patients who underwent TAPA block for postoperative pain management and patients who were not preferred TAPA block and were planned for pain treatment with conventional methods, whether these treatments were affected or not.

Inclusion criteria

• patients who will undergo major abdominoplasty,
• over the age of 18,
• under the age of 85,
• patients who has ASA (American Society of Anesthesiologists) II and ASA III criteria

Exclusion criteria

• younger than 18 years old, over 85 years old,
• Having a history of cerebrovascular disease
• Having surgery other than oncological surgery
• having coagulation disorder
• being illiterate
• having visual and auditory problems
• Inability to cooperate with cognitive function test
• having an emergency surgery
• Those who are not able to read and sign the consent form
• Patients deemed unsuitable by the researcher
• Patients who do not want to participate