Articles: analgesics.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
The post-operative analgesic action of midazolam following epidural administration.
To study post-operative analgesia with epidural midazolam, 30 patients who had undergone upper abdominal surgery were divided into two equal groups. When patients complained of pain, they were given either 6 microliters 0.25% bupivacaine (control group) or 6 microliters 0.25% bupivacaine + 0.05 mg kg-1 midazolam (midazolam group) epidurally at a single level between T7 and T12. Blood pressure and heart rate were similar in the two groups. ⋯ The area of analgesia was significantly larger in the midazolam group 10 and 30 min after administration and involved the entire spinal area and the head and face 10 min after administration in six patients. Amnesia was observed in 14 patients in the midazolam group but in only one in the control group. Epidural midazolam together with bupivacaine adds central analgesic, sedative, and amnesic effects to spinal analgesia and is useful for managing post-operative pain.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Intrathecal fentanyl for post-thoracotomy pain.
This double-blind, placebo-controlled study investigated the efficacy of intermittent doses of intrathecal fentanyl in 30 patients undergoing thoracotomy. They were allocated randomly to three groups, two of which had microspinal catheters inserted into the lumbar subarachnoid space at the end of surgery; the third group acted as a control. Intrathecal fentanyl or 0.9% saline was administered through the catheters and all patients received morphine using a patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) system. ⋯ Intrathecal fentanyl resulted in a faster onset of analgesia (mean visual analogue scale (VAS) score at 1 h = 0.9 compared with 6.3 (95% confidence intervals for the difference -6.8, -4.0) for the other groups; P < 0.001) and significantly lower pain scores at rest, on cough and on movement. PEFR values were consistently higher in the intrathecal fentanyl group. There were no cases of early or delayed respiratory depression.
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Case Reports
Gastrointestinal complications associated with intramuscular ketorolac tromethamine therapy in the elderly.
To report 3 cases of gastrointestinal (GI) complications associated with the use of intramuscular ketorolac tromethamine therapy in elderly patients. ⋯ We recommend that the manufacturer's guidelines be followed when ketorolac is used in elderly patients, and the drug should not be used in patients with a history of gastric ulcer disease. The use of misoprostol may be warranted as prophylactic therapy in high-risk patients who are receiving ketorolac.
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Chronic pain requires chronic treatment. Dihydrocodeine retard (DHC) complies with the requirements for treatment of chronic pain: its sustained release formula provides pain relief for up to 12 h. Thus, taking two tablets of this preparation daily is sufficient to ensure continuous pain relief. ⋯ The most frequent side effects were gastrointestinal (n=106), followed by symptoms related to the central nervous system such as dizziness, sedation, etc. (n=50), and non-specific symptoms such as indisposition (n=29). Other specific symptoms were rare and distributed over many different organ systems. Insummary, the findings of this post marketing surveillance study suggest that sustained-release dihydrocodeine is an effective and safe analgesic drug for the treatment of chronic pain of various causes.
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This manuscript reviews some aspects of the unorthodox development of analgesics. Most of them were not discovered by systematic research for analgesics; rather they were developed primarily as antipyretic or antirheumatic drugs that later became analgesics due to clinical observations. ⋯ These drawbacks limit the discovery of new analgesics. On the other hand, modern insights into the site of action and the mode of action of antipyretic analgesics are likely to further the discovery of new and better analgesics.