Tianjin Medical Journal ›› 2026, Vol. 54 ›› Issue (8): 881-885.doi: 10.11958/20260369

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The pharmacological properties and research status of liposomal bupivacaine

LU Futai(), YANG Tao, WANG Ting, WANG Lei()   

  1. Department of Anesthesiology, Tianjin Union Medical Center, the First Affiliated Hospital of Nankai University, Tianjin 300121, China
  • Received:2026-02-02 Revised:2026-05-01 Published:2026-08-15 Online:2026-08-07
  • Contact: △E-mail: tumcmzk@163.com

Abstract:

Local anesthetics play a significant role in clinical anesthesia and pain management. However, the duration of action of traditional local anesthetics is limited, which restricts their application in the field of postoperative analgesia. Liposomal bupivacaine, as a novel long-acting local anesthetic, significantly prolongs the duration of drug action through its unique DepoFoam technology, offering a new solution for pain management. Since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) first approved bupivacaine liposome for wound infiltration to control postoperative pain in 2011, it has gradually attracted global attention, and related studies have emerged continuously. This article will elaborate the pharmacological properties of liposomal bupivacaine including pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, and comprehensively review its clinical research progress in local infiltration anesthesia, nerve block anesthesia and application in special populations, so as to provide evidence-based references for the rational and standardized clinical application of liposomal bupivacaine and the optimization of perioperative analgesia regimens.

Key words: bupivacaine, liposomes, analgesia, anesthesia, local, pharmacology

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