Intercostal nerve cryoanalgesia in lung transplantation: a retrospective single-center study.

Authors

Sébastien Tanaka, Charles Baulier, Enora Atchade, Aurelie Gouel, Brice Lortat-Jacob, Laura Soldan, Sandrine Boudinet, Vincent Bunel, Kinan El Husseini, Yves Castier, Arnaud Roussel, Antoine Girault, Philippe Montravers, Pierre Mordant, Bichat Lung Transplant Group

Published in

Anesthesia and pain medicine. Jul 09, 2026. Epub Jul 09, 2026.

Abstract

Pain management after lung transplantation (LT) is challenging, with most cen-ters using a multimodal analgesia approach that includes opioids and thoracic epidural analge-sia (TEA). Intercostal nerve cryoanalgesia (INCA), which blocks peripheral nerves to provide pain control for about two months, is gaining popularity worldwide but has rarely been stud-ied in the context of LT.
Retrospective, before-and-after single-center study conducted between October 2024 and July 2025. A group without INCA (PRE-INCA) was compared to a group with INCA (POST-INCA). All patients received TEA and multimodal analgesia. The primary out-come was the total consumption of oral morphine milligram equivalents (MMEs) between Day 1 and Day 28.
We included 28 consecutive LT recipients, among whom 14 received INCA. Pa-tients' baseline characteristics were similar across groups. Patients in the POST-INCA group received significantly fewer opioids during the first 28 days (PRE-INCA 1,499 [972, 1,909] MME vs. POST-INCA 543 [153, 1,050] MME; P = 0.004). Moreover, at month 1, basal pain was significantly reduced in the POST-INCA group (Numeric Rating Scale [NRS] PRE-INCA 2.25 [0.00, 4.50] vs. NRS POST-INCA 0.00 [0.00, 0.00]; P = 0.010). Other clinical outcomes, including duration of mechanical ventilation, length of stay, forced expiratory value at 1 s, and mortality, were similar between the groups.
Adding INCA to TEA is associated with a significant reduction in opioid con-sumption and postoperative pain during the first 28 days following LT. These results should be interpreted with caution due to the retrospective, single-center design and the small sample size of the study.

PMID:
42419749
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 09 Jul 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.