Management of fifty cases of chest injury with a regimen of epidural bupivacaine and morphine.

Epidural bupivacaine and morphine were administered to fifty patients who had suffered traumatic injuries to the chest. Forty-three of these patients made satisfactory recoveries without requiring any ventilatory support. Six patients were ventilated, one because of cardiovascular complications of myocardial infarction, two because of inadequate analgesia, and three because of respiratory failure. Three patients died. Serious side-effects were not common. One patient developed respiratory depression which required withdrawal of morphine, and one patient developed an epidural space infection.