Treatment
Review: patient controlled opioid analgesia reduces postoperative pain more than conventional as-needed opioid analgesia
Hudcova J, McNicol E, Quah C, et al. Patient controlled opioid analgesia versus conventional opioid analgesia for postoperative pain. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2006;(4):CD003348.[Medline]
Q Is patient controlled intravenous (IV) opioid analgesia (PCA) as effective as usual regimens of as-needed opioid analgesia for postoperative pain?
Key Words: analgesia (patient controlled) • analgesics (opioid) • pain (postoperative)
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Data sources:
Medline (1966 to November 2004), EMBASE/Excerpta Medica (1994 to February 2004), Cochrane Central Register of Controlled trials (Cochrane Library, Issue 3, 2004), and reference lists of retrieved studies.
Study selection and assessment:
randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that compared the efficacy of PCA (intermittent IV doses of morphine or other mu opioid agonists self administered by patients using PCA pumps) with conventionally administered opioids (intramuscular, IV, subcutaneous, or oral) for postoperative pain. Exclusion criteria included an initial period of analgesia other than postoperative PCA, chronic opioid therapy, chronic pain, co-administration of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs during PCA, or continuous IV opioid infusion. 55 RCTs (n = 3861) met the selection criteria. The median quality score of individual trials was 2 out of 5 on the Oxford Quality Scale. Morphine was used in 44 trials; lockout intervals ranged from 5–30 minutes, and most trials had no dose limit.
Outcomes:
included
University of Glamorgan,
Pontypridd, Wales, UK
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
