BACKGROUND: Post operative pain is an inevitable consequence of surgery even in children. The length of the incision causes significant post operative pain in children after pyeloplasty and simple nephrectomy. Both erector spinae plane block and paravertebral block have been proven to be effective in providing post operative analgesia. However no comparison studies have been done on their analgesic efficacy.

AIM: We aim to compare the effects of single injection of erector spinae plane block and paravertebral block on post operative pain and analgesic requirements in children after open pyeloplasty and simple nephrectomy.

STUDY DESIGN: double blinded, prospective, randomised controlled trial

MATERIAL AND METHODS: a total of 100 American society of Anesthesiologists physical status 1 and 2  paediatric patients, aged 1-15 years,  scheduled to undergo open pyeloplasty or simple nephrectomy will be randomly allocated to receive either erector spinae plane block (Group A: n = 50) or paravertebral block (Group B: n=50) with 0.2% ropivacaine 0.8ml/kg and 0.5ml/kg respectively pre operatively post induction of general anesthesia. A standard protocol will be used to provide general anesthesia. Post operatively FLACC (faces, legs, activity, cry, consolability) score or VAS (visual analog score) will be used for pain assessment according to age of the patient at 0, 1, 2, 6, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48 hours and one week later on follow up. The time to first rescue analgesia, total analgesic requirement, time taken to perform the blocks, intraoperative hemodynamic changes and post operative parental and surgeon satisfactions will be assessed. Data collected will be entered in Epidata software and analysed.