Journal of opioid management
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Meta Analysis Comparative Study
Comparison of the postoperative analgesic efficacy of intravenous patient-controlled analgesia with tramadol to intravenous patient-controlled analgesia with opioids.
Intravenous patient-controlled analgesia (IV PCA) with tramadol is an accepted method to deliver postoperative analgesia outside North America; however, the analgesic efficacy of this analgesic agent when compared with IVPCA with opioids is uncertain. As such, the authors undertook a systematic review to compare the analgesic efficacy of IVPCA tramadol with that of IVPCA with opioids. ⋯ IVPCA tramadol appears to produce similar pain scores when compared with that from IVPCA opioids; however, the side effect profile is different between the two groups. Because of the relatively small sample size, no determination of the relative "safety" (eg, respiratory depression) of one regimen over the other can be made, and larger RCTs would be needed for such a determination.