Dr. Lawrence Haines, MD

PENG vs FIC Nerve Blocks

for Hip Fracture Pain

Ultrasound-guided nerve blocks are an important tool for treating pain due to orthopedic injury in the ED. They provide long lasting, opioid-sparing pain relief that is generally safe and well-tolerated by patients1. Elderly patients with hip fractures commonly present to the ED, and their injury can be painful. Commonly used opioid pain regimens can have deleterious side effects, especially in elderly patients, like somnolence, delirium, hypotension and respiratory depression. The fascia iliaca compartment (FIC) block has become a familiar technique to emergency physicians as a pain control treatment for hip fractures. The pericapsular nerve group (PENG) block has recently been proposed as a novel method to treat pain due to hip, acetabular and pelvic fracture by targeting the terminal sensory articular nerve branches of the femoral nerve (FN), obturator nerve (ON), and accessory obturator nerve (AON). At this time there has been no study comparing the efficacy of the two nerve blocks, PENG and FIC. This aim of this study is to compare the efficacy of the PENG block (20mL of Bupivacaine 0.50%) to that of the FIC block (40mL of Bupivacaine 0.25%) for patients with hip fractures in the ED. Our hypothesis is that PENG will demonstrate analgesia that is non-inferior to FIC. Subjective pain scores on a scale of 0 to 10 will be assessed before and after the block. All subjects will receive 4mg of morphine after consent and prior to the block.