Postoperative pain management strategies following selective dorsal rhizotomy in pediatric cerebral palsy patients: a systematic review of published regimens.

Background: Surgical selective dorsal rhizotomy (SDR) in appropriate pediatric cerebral palsy patients is an effective treatment for spasticity. However, there remains heterogeneity reported in postoperative pain management with and without opioid medication in this delicate cohort. The objective of this study was to aggregate pertinent metadata by means of systematic review to summarize all relevant postoperative pain regimens in the literature.

Methods: Searches of multiple electronic databases from inception to June 2024 were conducted following PRISMA guidelines. Articles were screened against pre-specified criteria. Outcomes and regimens were then summarized.

Results: A total of 16 cohort studies were included in this study published between 1989 and 2024. Amongst all studies, outcomes were reported for a total of 636 with median cohort age 6.3 years, and median cohort male proportion 62% was reported. Four studies reported regimens involving systemic analgesia, 8 studies reported regimens involving epidural analgesia, and the remaining 4 studies reported regimens involving intrathecal analgesia. All studies primary pain management involved opioid medication, with 8 studies having opioid medication available as indicated, 3 studies having opioid medication as a single dose, and the remaining studies having opioid medication as a continuous agent in the immediate postoperative period. Across all studies, rates of desaturations, nausea and/or vomiting, and pruritis ranged from 0 to 55%, 25 to 82%, and 15 to 70% respectively. Eleven of the 16 studies included a comparative component, demonstrating that their regimen was at least comparable to their control regimen, if not superior.

Conclusions: Multiple variations of postoperative pain management in pediatric cerebral palsy patients following SDR have been reported in the literature, involving systemic, epidural, and intrathecal analgesia. Concerns for adverse effects with the utilization of opioid medication has led to the trend towards multimodal pain management relying more on non-opioid medication regimens in the more recent literature.