[Medical Q&A] Is the “cocktail” used in knee replacement surgery alcohol?

Planner: Chinese Medical Association

Reviewer: Han Liqiang, deputy chief physician, Tianjin University Central Hospital

Knee replacement is a common treatment for knee osteoarthritis in clinical practice, but the postoperative wound pain is often quite obvious, which can cause great discomfort to patients. In order to reduce the postoperative wound pain, a "cocktail" therapy is often added during surgery. This is not real alcohol, but a carefully prepared combination of drugs.

Cocktail is a mixed drink. I believe that what you have heard more about is the cocktail therapy for the treatment of AIDS (a combination of multiple drugs into a treatment plan). In the field of orthopedics, cocktail therapy is actually an analgesic program, which is to mix local anesthetics (mainly including ropivacaine, lidocaine, glucocorticoids, morphine drugs, etc.) and inject them around the knee joint using local infiltration anesthesia technology. It can play a role in postoperative analgesia. The duration of the drug effect is generally 48 to 72 hours. The doctor will make corresponding adjustments based on the treatment experience and the specific situation of the patient. The pain time of the wound after knee replacement surgery is often 48 hours. If it exceeds 48 hours, the pain will be greatly reduced. Cocktail therapy can greatly reduce the patient's wound pain during this period and improve postoperative discomfort. At the same time, because the pain of the wound is greatly reduced, the patient can get out of bed as soon as possible to perform knee joint functional rehabilitation exercises, which helps to reduce the occurrence of postoperative complications (such as deep vein thrombosis, pressure sores, etc.).