Postoperative Use and Early Discontinuation of Intravenous Lidocaine in Spine Patients

Our institution employs a multimodal approach to manage postoperative pain after spine surgery. It involves continuous intravenous (IV) lidocaine until the morning of postoperative day two. This study aimed to determine the rate and reasons for early discontinuation of IV lidocaine in our spine patients. We conducted a retrospective chart review and included pediatric patients who underwent ≥ 3-level spine surgery and received postoperative IV lidocaine from November 2019 to September 2022. For each case, we recorded the side effects of IV lidocaine, adverse events, time to discontinuation, and discontinuation rate. Subsequently, we used the same methodology to generate an adult cohort for comparison. We included 52 pediatric (18M:34F) and 50 (21M:29F) adult patients. The pediatric cohort’s mean age was 14 years (8–18), and BMI 23.9 kg/m2 (13.0–42.8). The adult cohort’s mean age was 61 years (29–82), and BMI 28.8 kg/m2 (17.2–44.1). IV lidocaine was discontinued prematurely in 21/52 (40.4