Laparoscopic surgery is considered to be a minimally invasive procedure with fewer complications and faster recovery. However, pain following such surgery is still a major problem.

A multimodal approach to pain management has been suggested for optimal treatment of pain after laparoscopic surgery. Other than the parenteral and oral pain medications used, various local anesthetic techniques can provide analgesia following laparoscopic surgical procedures.

Local anesthetic can be instilled locally at the wound site in the form of incisional or intraperitoneal approach, or around the nerves as a spinal, epidural, paravertebral or transversus abdominis plane block. Lidocaine has also been studied as an intravenous infusion to provide postoperative analgesia following laparoscopic surgery.

There is still not a definitive consensus as to which technique is superior, but including one of the methods in addition to providing the patient with parenteral and enteral drugs could provide better postsurgical analgesia. The aim of this review article is to look at the effectiveness of various local anesthetic techniques available to provide analgesia following laparoscopic surgery.