Comparative Study of Ultrasound Guided Popliteal Fossa Block versus Ankle Block as Primary Anaesthesia for Forefoot Operative Procedure

Regional anaesthesia can be used as the primary anaesthesia method and also as an adjunct to control postoperative pain following forefoot surgeries. The purpose of this study was to compare the overall efficacy of ultrasound guided popliteal fossa block to ankle block as the primary anaesthesia for forefoot surgeries. It was an observational study including 112 participants. They were divided into 2 groups, Group PFB: popliteal fossa block with 20 ml 0.5%bupivacaine and 10ml2% lignocaine (total 30ml) & Group AB: ankle block with 20 ml 0.5% bupivacaine and 10ml 2% lignocaine (total 30ml). The primary outcome variables were VAS score and rescue analgesia and secondary outcome variables were hemodynamics (heart rate, MAP). P value < 0.05 was considered significant. Our study showed a reduction in post-operative visual analogue scale scores in PFB group (5.21± 0.834) as compared to AB group (7.09 ± 0.815) with a P value of 0.0001 which was statistically significant. The mean first rescue analgesia time for PFB group was 12.46±1.59 while for AB group was 6.93± 0.82 with P value of 0.0001 which was statistically significant. Both AB and PFB provides sufficient anaesthesia for forefoot surgeries. However, popliteal fossa block is preferred over ankle block for forefoot surgeries due to longer post-operative analgesia.