Intercostal Nerve Block in Uniportal Video-Assisted Thoracoscopic Surgery: A Propensity-Score Matched Single-Center Study of Early Postoperative Pain and Opioid Use.

Background

Acute pain after video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) promotes respiratory splinting, impaired cough, and pulmonary complications, and predicts persistent opioid use. Surgeon-administered intercostal nerve block (ICNB) is a simple regional technique, but its independent effect on early pain and opioid requirement in a contemporary uniportal VATS (UVATS) pathway is incompletely defined.

Methods

We performed a retrospective cohort study of 456 consecutive patients undergoing UVATS at a single Israeli center between 2017 and 30 May 2025. Patients receiving an intercostal block were compared with those who did not. Baseline covariates were balanced by 1:1 nearest-neighbor propensity-score matching (caliper 0.2 SD of the logit propensity score). The primary endpoints were pain on postoperative day (POD) 1 (visual analog scale, VAS) and postoperative opioid use; secondary endpoints included later pain, analgesic regimen, postoperative pneumonia, and mortality.

Results

Matching yielded 159 patients per group (n = 318) with all clinically relevant covariates balanced (standardized mean difference [SMD] < 0.13). Median POD1 VAS was lower with the block (4 [IQR 3-4] vs. 5 [5-7]; p < 0.001), and 76.1% of block patients were opioid-free versus 10.7% who were not (p < 0.001). The effect was concentrated early and attenuated by POD3. In multivariable analysis the block was independently associated with lower POD1 VAS (adjusted β = -1.64, 95% CI -2.00 to -1.29; p < 0.001). Postoperative pneumonia was less frequent in the block group (5.7% vs. 20.1%; p < 0.001). Thirty-day and one-year mortality did not differ significantly.

Conclusions

In UVATS, a surgeon-placed intercostal nerve block was associated with lower early postoperative pain that persisted after adjustment for operating surgeon and surgical era, concordant with pooled meta-analytic estimates; associated reductions in opioid use and pneumonia were confounded with surgeon and secular trend and are hypothesis-generating. These single-center, retrospective findings require prospective, protocol-randomized confirmation.