Society for Pediatric Pain Medicine
Better Care for Children in Pain

Regional anesthesia for children undergoing cleft palate has been increasing in popularity. A new paper retrospectively reviews one center’s outcomes, and found that suprazygomatic maxillary nerve block reduced opioid consumption and length of stay when compared to surgical infiltration. 

Read the paper here: https://doi.org/10.1177/10556656241234595

Also, Are you interested in learning about this block? Check out our visual pearl here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGo993f07t8&t=7s

Dr. Jennifer Stinson’s team from SickKids, Toronto has published a scoping review on age and sex differences in neuropathic pain and CRPS in the pediatric population. The review found that there is a gap in data for younger children with these conditions as most studies involve adolescents. 

Follow the link to read the paper: https://journals.lww.com/clinicalpain/abstract/2024/07000/age_and_sex_differences_in_pediatric_neuropathic.5.aspx

Hypnosis is a valuable tool to help ease anxiety and pain. A new study compared addition of lidocaine to propofol with expert hypnosis during IV cannulation and induction with propofol, and found that hypnosis alone, using the “magic glove” technique was effective!

Link to the study: https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/doi/10.1111/pan.14909

Link to Dr. Leora Kuttner’s magic glove method: https://pediatric-pain.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/The_Magic_Glove12.pdf

A recent RCT studied the effectiveness of ultrasound guided QL blocks versus epidural block for abdominal surgery in the pediatric population, and found that QL blocks were equally effective in providing analgesia when looking at opioid consumption and pain scores.

Follow the link to read the full study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11107015/pdf/12871_2024_Article_2548.pdf