Postoperative pain management is one of the most challenging jobs in orthopedic surgical population as it comprises of patients from extremes of ages and with multiple comorbidities. Though effective, opioids may contribute to serious adverse effects particularly in old age patients. Intravenous paracetamol is widely used in the postoperative period with the hope that it may reduce opioid consumption and produce better pain relief. A brief review of human clinical trials where intravenous paracetamol was compared with placebo or no treatment in postoperative period in orthopedic surgical population has been done here. We found that four clinical trials reported that there is a significant reduction in postoperative opioid consumption. When patients received an IV injection of 2 g propacetamol, reduction of morphine consumption up to 46% has been reported. However, one study did not find any reduction of opioid requirement after spinal surgery in children and adolescent. Four clinical trials reported better pain scores when paracetamol has been used, but other three trials denied. We conclude that postoperative intravenous paracetamol is a safe and effective adjunct to opioid after orthopedic surgery, but at present there is no data to decide whether paracetamol reduces opioid related adverse effects or not.
Background:Dexamethasone is a potent anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and antiemetic drug. Individual randomized controlled trials found a possible benefit of epidural dexamethasone. The purpose of this meta-analysis is to estimate the benefit of epidural dexamethasone on postoperative pain and opioid consumption and to formulate a recommendation for evidence-based practice.Materials and Methods:Prospective, randomized controlled trials comparing the analgesic efficacy of epidural local anesthetic and dexamethasone combination, with local anesthetic alone for postoperative pain management after abdominal surgery, were planned to be included in this meta-analysis. PubMed, PubMed Central, Scopus, and Central Register of Clinical Trials of the Cochrane Collaboration (CENTRAL) databases were searched for eligible controlled trials using the following search words: “Epidural”, “dexamethasone”, and “postoperative pain”, until February 20, 2015.Results:Data from five randomized control trials have been included in this meta-analysis. Epidural dexamethasone significantly decreased postoperative morphine consumption (mean difference −7.89 mg; 95% confidence interval [CI]: −11.66 to −3.71) and number of patients required postoperative rescue analgesic boluses (risk ratio: 0.51; 95% CI: 0.41-0.63).Conclusion:The present data shows that the addition of dexamethasone to local anesthetic in epidural is beneficial for postoperative pain management.
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