Shoulder surgery frequently results in pain that is often difficult to manage with current analgesic options. Inadequate analgesia after shoulder surgery may lead to decreased range of motion, delay recovery, increase morbidity and lead to patient dissatisfaction. Moreover, a persistent acute pain may lead to chronic pain and narcotic dependence. 

 The most probable model involves “gate control” theory in which large-diameter afferent nerve fibers are stimulated, inhibiting the transfer of pain signals from small-diameter afferent fibers to the central nervous system at the level of the spinal cord. 

In recent years, the dry catheter technique of stimulating the brachial plexus without any drug delivery has been described in shoulder arthroplasty and has documented effective pain relief. However, there is a lack of trials comparing this technique with local anaesthetic infusion for postoperative pain in shoulder arthroplasty patients.

We hypothesised was that stimulation of brachial plexus in postoperative period may reduce the need of local anesthetic (LA) infusion and overall LA consumption.

Therefore, we planned this study to understand the postoperative block efficacy by stimulation of interscalene brachial plexus.