Contribution of celiac plexus block to patient comfort in patients with inoperable cancer

Abstract

Aim: Pain control is an important issue in patients with inoperable cancers of upper abdominal organs. Although various pharmacological drugs are adequate for this, more invasive and interventional methods such as celiac plexus block (CPB) come forward for the cases which are unresponsive to conventional medical treatments. In this study our aim was to evaluate the contribution of CPB to patient comfort in patients with inoperable cancer. Material and Methods: Thirty-four patients who were diagnosed with inoperable malignant and underwent CPB during five years period were included. All procedures were performed with the guidance of endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) and ethanol was used as the neurolytic agent. Results: Majority of the cases were female (%55.9, n:19) and the median age was 66 years (range: 56-78 years). Most of the patients had pancreatic cancer (38.3%, n:13), and the remaining patients had gastric cancer, Klatskin tumor, gallbladder cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma. Pain resolved completely in 16 patients (47.2%) and was controlled with non-narcotic analgesics in six patients (17.6%) after the procedure. None of the patients developed any major complication or paraplegia. Conclusion: It was observed that pain control was not sufficiently achieved in the advanced grade of invasion. For this reason, patient selection should be done meticulously and CPB should be performed in the early period of pain in order to obtain an effective response. © 2020 Surgical Society of Northern Greece. All rights reserved.