First Experience in Application of Intraoperative Epidural Morphine Analgesia with Postoperative Ropivacaine Anesthesia in Children with III-IV Degree Scoliotic Deformity

First experience in aplication of intraoperative epidural morphine analgesia with postoperative ropivacaine anesthesia at correction of III-IV degree scoliotic deformity in children (25 patients) is presented. It is shown that epidural morphine analgesia on lumbar level as a component of combined anesthesia provides an adequate analgesia in during operation and creates an analgesic background for postoperative anesthesia with local anesthetics. Intraoperative high catheterization of epidural space by the proposed technique enables to avoid neurologic complications and provides the possibility of effective postoperative anesthesia with ropivacaine infusion within 3 days on the background of prolonged action of epidurally injected morphine. First xperience in application of the suggested technique shows that it is effective enough and helps this group of patients to endure an invasive operation with greater comfort.

epidural analgesia, scoliosis, morphine, ropivacaine