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Artificial Intelligence Evaluation of Fascial Plane Block Quality and Postoperative Pain in Cardiac Surgery

NCT07581678 · Status: COMPLETED · Type: OBSERVATIONAL · Enrollment: 120

Last updated 2026-07-17

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Postoperative pain is a common and significant problem following open heart surgery. Fascial plane blocks (FPBs) such as the serratus anterior plane block (SAPB) and the pecto-intercostal fascial block (PIFB) are increasingly used as part of multimodal analgesia in cardiac surgery. However, objective assessment of block quality and its relationship with clinical outcomes remains limited in the literature.

This prospective observational study evaluated the anatomical success of ultrasound-guided fascial plane blocks applied in elective open heart surgery (median sternotomy). Block images were recorded in DICOM format and scored independently and blindly on a 3-point scale by five pre-trained, publicly available large vision-language models used as independent observers via zero-shot prompting (Gemini 3.5 Flash, Claude Sonnet 4.6, ChatGPT 5.5, Grok 4.3, Kimi AI 2.6), by three experienced anaesthesiologists, and by an adjudicator.

The primary analysis was the correlation between anatomical block success scores and postoperative pain (Numerical Rating Scale at rest and on coughing). Agreement between AI and human assessments, total analgesic consumption and clinical outcomes were analysed as secondary aims.

Note: this registration was originally entered from a superseded version of the protocol. The current approved protocol (version dated 29 April 2026) specifies pre-trained large vision-language models rather than a bespoke convolutional neural network. The record has been corrected accordingly; see Detailed Description.

Conditions

  • Pain, Postoperative
  • Cardiac Surgical Procedures
  • Nerve Block

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Bursa Yuksek Ihtisas Training and Research Hospital

    lead OTHER_GOV

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Max Age
80 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2025-09-01
Primary Completion
2026-05-01
Completion
2026-05-01

Countries

  • Turkey (Türkiye)

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT07581678 on ClinicalTrials.gov