Statistical analysis of the pecto-intercostal fascial plane block on pain-related outcomes in cardiac surgery

Treatment of pain is a primary objective in medical hospitals and various plane blocks are used for this purpose. However, the effect of the pecto-intercostal fascial plane block (PIFPB) in cardiac surgery was not studied systematically. In this work, we conduct a statistical analysis of reported data from different countries. The objective of our study was to evaluate pain reduction after the PIFPB in cardiac surgery. We found two studies that reported slightly different pain scores, namely, pain measured at rest and with movement. The model favors the experimental (bupivacaine, ropivacaine) group over the control (placebo) group in terms of postoperative pain (SMD with 95% CI is –1.29 [–1.68, –0.89], p-value < 0.00001). However, the total length of hospital stay was longer in the experimental group with a mean difference of 1.35 days with 95% CI [1.04, 1.66] and p-value < 0.00001. The model showed no significant difference between groups in opioid consumption. To summarize, PIFPB after cardiac surgery reduces pain intensity scores but results in longer hospital stays. More trials should be done in the future to examine the effect of PIFPB on other medical outcomes.