Articles: analgesia.
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Clinical Trial
Continuous thoracic epidural infusions for postoperative analgesia after pectus deformity repair.
To determine whether continuous epidural analgesia after repair of a pectus deformity is a viable and safe alternative to high-dose narcotics in children. ⋯ Thoracic epidural analgesia was completely successful in nine (53%) children who underwent repair of pectus deformity, and effectively reduced the intravenous narcotic demand in the other eight. Pain control was excellent, and no catheter-related complications were encountered. The data show that this method of analgesia in children is a safe and attractive alternative to intravenous narcotics, and eliminates the potential disadvantages of sedation and respiratory compromise.
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Acta Anaesthesiol Belg · Jan 1996
ReviewPain relief and clinical outcome: from opioids to balanced analgesia.
If it is generally accepted that adequate postoperative pain relief will improve outcome from surgery, several controlled trials demonstrated this only for lower body surgical procedures with epidural and spinal anesthetics. Important effects on outcome were not shown when postoperative opioids were administered with patient controlled (PCA) or epidural techniques. However, the most optimal pain relief seems to be best achieved with balanced analgesia techniques using combinations of epidural opioids and local anesthetics and systemic non-steroidal antiinflammatory drugs. Future efforts should aim at including physical rehabilitation programs in the pain treatment regimen.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Jan 1996
Clinical TrialThe analgesic response to intravenous lidocaine in the treatment of neuropathic pain.
This study was performed in order to determine concentration-effect, and graded and quantal dose-response relationships for the clinical administration of intravenous (IV) lidocaine to patients with neuropathic pain. Thirteen patients were administered 500 mg of IV lidocaine at a rate of 8.35 mg/min over 60 min. Visual analog pain scores and venous blood samples were obtained concomitantly at 10 min intervals for 60 min. ⋯ Interestingly, the free concentration of lidocaine had no better correlation with the onset of analgesia or the attainment of complete analgesia than the serum concentration of lidocaine. This suggests that the mechanism of analgesia to IV lidocaine may not be based upon a conventional concentration-effect relationship. In conclusion, the results of this study suggest that the analgesic response to IV lidocaine is best characterized by a precipitous "break in pain" over a narrow dosage and concentration range.
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The patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) or "ondemand analgesia" is a pain-relieving therapy, which is regulated and monitored by the patient himself. Postoperative pain therapy is the main approach for PCA, which facilitates a long-term, individually controlled pain relief. ⋯ This kind of therapy needs the acceptance and understanding of the patient as a main condition for the success. Beside an increase of patients' comfort and patients' independence of analgetic demand from the medical staff a reduction in postoperative complications can be expected, the time of hospitalisation might be decreased.