The Importance of Intravenous Perioperative Lidocaine as an Adjuvant to Acute Postoperative Pain Control: A Narrative Review Article

Background: Nowadays perioperative adjuvants become popular, and they can decrease post-operative opioid consumption gradually, Lidocaine is one of those. It is sodium channel blocker and has a multimodal effect. It is a local anesthetic that has analgesic, antiarrhythmic, anti-hyperalgesic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-neuropathic effect. With these descriptions, can decreases hospital staying period, ameliorate pain scores with post-operative analgesia with opioid-sparing effect, and finally has cost efficiency. It is available, inexpensive, simple, safe, and its’ consumption is easy, making faster bowel habits return and better rehabilitation after the surgeries. This narrative review has been written to evaluate these properties of Lidocaine. Methods: The aim of this narrative review was assess the significance of peri-operative lidocaine as an adjuvant to manage acute postoperative pain. The manuscript has been presented as a comprehensive search that was conducted across several major databases, included: PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. The search focused on studies published between 1990 and 2024 to provide a broad perspective on both historical and current evidence. Results: This review has reported the results of several articles. It can be obvious perioperative Lidocaine consumption as an adjuvant reduce post-operative pain perception, improve returning bowel habits, and post-surgical better rehabilitation and pain control. Conclusion: Review of these articles illustrated; perioperative systemic lidocaine as an adjuvant with efficiency of reducing post-operative pain perception, has an opioid-sparing effect, improving intestinal activity and decreasing post-operative recovery period. Finally bring more comfort for patients and accompanying, less pressure on staff and most importantly is economical for both sides.