Patient-Controlled Intravenous Analgesia with or without Ultrasound-Guided Bilateral Intercostal Nerve Blocks in Children Undergoing the Nuss Procedure: A Randomized, Double-Blinded, Controlled Trial.

"Disclosure Bingjie Ma, Yuan Sun, and Can Hao are co-first authors. Conflicts of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest."

"Patients with pectus excavatum were enrolled between September 1, 2018, and August 31, 2019. This study was approved by the ethics committee (approval no.: XHEC-C-2018-018–2) and prospectively registered at http://www.chictr.org (ChiCTR1800018040). The exclusion criteria were as follows: patients requiring additional surgery, history of analgesic administration (such as opioids, acetaminophen, or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) 24 hours before premedication, history of coagulation disorders or allergic to local anesthetics, history of renal insufficiency or American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) physical status of higher than II, inability to understand PCIA device use, or parental objection to intercostal nerve block. The day before surgery, all children and their parents were informed about the trial process and signed inform consent in the anesthetic assessment office. The children (age range, 10 to 16 years) scheduled for the Nuss procedure at Xinhua Hospital were randomized to the intercostal or control group ()."