Randomized Trial of Lidocaine Vs Lidocaine/bupivacaine Periprostatic Injection on Longitudinal Pain Scores After Prostate Biopsy

Purpose: Periprostatic lidocaine reduces immediate post-prostate biopsy pain but still many men will not consent to re-biopsy. We performed a randomized study to assess whether adding long acting local anesthesia to a short acting agent would further reduce pain.

Materials And Methods: A total of 300 men undergoing transrectal ultrasound guided prostate biopsy were sequentially randomized to receive either short acting local lidocaine (lid) or short and long acting lidocaine and bupivacaine (lid/bup). A 7-day questionnaire was used to study daily pain (10-point visual analog score), bleeding (hematuria, PR bleeding, hematospermia), visits to the family doctor and analgesic use, and whether they would agree to future re-biopsy.

Results: Of the 256 questionnaires returned 250 were suitable for analysis. Cross-sectional comparison showed no intergroup differences in mean pain scores immediately after biopsy (2.24, 95% CI 1.94-2.5 vs 2.61, 95% CI 2.3-2.9, p = 0.88 in lid and lid/bup groups, respectively). There was a significant rebound in visual analog scale at 1 hour in the lid group but not in the lid/bup group (+ 0.9 vs + 0.09, p = 0.0006). Longitudinal analysis showed the global pain experience after lid/bup was better compared to lidocaine alone, with significantly less pain every subsequent day (p = 0.0006 to 0.002). No difference was seen in morbidity, analgesia usage or number refusing future re-biopsy (9.6% vs 9.8%).

Conclusions: Long and short acting local anesthetics together significantly attenuate the 1-hour rebound increase in pain scores seen after short acting anesthesia alone. Improved pain scores were sustained during the subsequent week and we advocate routine combination use for transrectal ultrasound guided prostate biopsy.