European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Introduction: Regional anaesthesia has proved to be an essential aspect of modern
paediatric anaesthesia which issues support for the superior and long-lasting analgesia
without the risk of respiratory depression. The transversus abdominis plane (TAP)
block is a type of regional anaesthetic technique which was first elaborated in the
literature as an anatomical landmark technique in the year 2001 by Rafi. Hence this
study is aimed to research whether USG guided TAP block was superior to local
infiltration for intra and postoperative analgesia for paediatric laparoscopic surgeries.
Materials and Methodology: 100 children in the age group of 3–12 years, posted for
elective laparoscopic hernia repair, orchidopexy, appendicectomy or cholecystectomy
were enrolled in the study. All the study participants were basically divided into two
groups like Group – T receiving TAP block and Group – L receiving local infiltration.
Results: The postoperative pain scores were reported to be significantly lower in Group
T at 10 and 30 min, 1 and 2 hours than in Group L as tabulated in table 2. After 2 h, the
pain scores were similar in the two groups. The necessity for rescue analgesia was also
significantly lower in the TAP block group (10/50) when compared with the local
infiltration group (37/50; P < 0.001). The intraoperative heart rates were significantly
lower in TAP block group at port placement, 30 and 60 min compared with the local
infiltration group.
Conclusion: This is to be conclude that TAP block is proven to be superior to local
infiltration for intra and immediate postoperative analgesia in paediatric laparoscopic
surgeries. We recommended the inclusion of TAP block as a routine in the part of
multimodal analgesia for these surgeries in paediatric patients.