Techniques for Periarticular Infiltration With Liposomal Bupivacaine for the Management of Pain After Hip and Knee Arthroplasty: A Consensus Recommendation

Periarticular infiltration analgesia when used as a component of multimodal analgesia regimen has been shown to provide excellent pain relief after major joint replacement surgery. Recently, a liposomal formulation of bupivacaine (Exparel) has been approved for administration into the surgical site to produce postsurgical analgesia. It is a sustained release preparation of bupivacaine that has been shown to provide pain relief for up to 72 hours with a single local administration. Because the success of infiltration technique depends on systematic, extensive, meticulous tissue injection before surgical wound closure, a group convened to address the best practice for periarticular injection techniques for hip and knee replacement surgery. This article provides recommendations for optimal solution for injection (i.e., drug combinations or ‘‘cocktail’’ and total volume) as well as detailed description (including illustrations) of the infiltration technique for primary, revision, and unicompartmental knee
arthroplasty and primary and revision hip arthroplasty using various surgical approaches. (Journal of Surgical Orthopaedic Advances 24(1):27–35, 2015) Key words: hip arthroplasty, knee arthroplasty, liposomal bupivacaine, pain management, periarticular
infiltration