Use of regional anesthesia in ambulatory arthroscopic knee surgery and ACL reconstruction

Editor's Note

Adductor canal nerve block (ACB) provides modest analgesic benefits after ambulatory arthroscopic knee surgery, including improved relief for rest pain for 8 hours and reduced opioid consumption for 24 hours, this meta-analysis finds.

However, ACB did not provide any analgesic benefits and did not improve any outcomes, compared to controls. ACB also was no different than femoral nerve block in terms of improved outcomes, which are modest.

Future studies are needed to determine the role of ACB in the setting of local anesthetic instillation, the authors say.