Epidural analgesia in patients with thrombocytopenia. Clinical case

The article presents a clinical case of a 25-year-old patient with progressive diffuse B-cell lymphoma with lesions of the S2 nerve root, accompanied by pain syndrome that is not relieved by systemic multimodal analgesia using opioids, antiepileptic and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Polyneuropathy, secondary immunodeficiency, thrombocytopenia grade IV refractory to platelet concentrate transfusion, Guillain-Barre syndrome, impaired the somatic status and intensified the pain syndrome. Local anesthetics epidural port was successfully implanted to improve quality of analgesia. As a result of prolonged epidural infusion of 0.2% ropivacaine with titration rate from 4 to 7 ml/hour depending on the severity of the pain syndrome, that significantly improved patient’s quality of life was achieved by reducing the intensity of pain and increasing duration of night sleep. In the early postoperative and long-term follow-up periods (14 days), there were no hemorrhagic and infectious complications associated with the use of the epidural port.