| JOURNAL HOME | CME HOME | THIS MONTH | PAST ISSUES | ETOC | COLLECTIONS |
| AUTHORS | REVIEWERS | EDITORIAL BOARD | FEEDBACK | RSS | HELP |
| ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
*Department of Anaesthesia, Frankston Hospital, Frankston; and Department of Anaesthesia and Pain Management, Alfred Hospital, Prahran, Victoria, Australia
Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Ashley R. Webb, Department of Anaesthesia, Frankston Hospital, Hastings Road, Frankston, Victoria, 3199 Australia. Address e-mail to awebb{at}phcn.vic.gov.au
In this double-blinded, randomized controlled trial, we tested whether the addition of tramadol to morphine for patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) resulted in improved analgesia efficacy and smaller morphine requirements compared with morphine PCA alone after abdominal surgery in adults. Sixty-nine patients were randomly allocated into two groups, each receiving morphine 1 mg/mL via PCA after surgery. The tramadol group received an intraoperative initial loading dose of tramadol (1 mg/kg) and a postoperative infusion of tramadol at 0.2 mg · kg-1 · h-1. The control group received an intraoperative equivalent volume of normal saline and a postoperative saline infusion. Postoperatively, tramadol was associated with improved subjective analgesic efficacy (P = 0.031) and there was significantly less PCA morphine use in the tramadol group (P = 0.023). No differences between the groups were found with regard to nausea, antiemetic use, sedation, or quality of recovery (all P > 0.05). We conclude that a tramadol infusion combined with PCA morphine improves analgesia and reduces morphine requirements after abdominal surgery compared with morphine PCA alone.
IMPLICATIONS: In this study, we determined whether adding a second pain-killing drug, tramadol, could improve pain relief after major surgery in patients receiving morphine patient-controlled analgesia. We found that patients receiving tramadol had significantly better opinions of their pain relief and used significantly less morphine with no increase in side effects.
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  A. Thevenin, H. Beloeil, A. Blanie, D. Benhamou, and J.-X. Mazoit The Limited Efficacy of Tramadol in Postoperative Patients: A Study of ED80 Using the Continual Reassessment Method Anesth. Analg., February 1, 2008; 106(2): 622 - 627. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
A. R. Webb, B. S. Skinner, S. Leong, H. Kolawole, T. Crofts, M. Taverner, and S. J. Burn The Addition of a Small-Dose Ketamine Infusion to Tramadol for Postoperative Analgesia: A Double-Blinded, Placebo-Controlled, Randomized Trial After Abdominal Surgery Anesth. Analg., April 1, 2007; 104(4): 912 - 917. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
Y.-C. Chu, S.-M. Lin, Y.-C. Hsieh, K.-H. Chan, and M.-Y. Tsou Intraoperative administration of tramadol for postoperative nurse-controlled analgesia resulted in earlier awakening and less sedation than morphine in children after cardiac surgery. Anesth. Analg., June 1, 2006; 102(6): 1668 - 1673. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 M. Elhakim, W. A. El-Megid, A. Metry, A. El-hennawy, and K. El-Queseny Analgesic and antacid properties of i.m. tramadol given before Caesarean section under general anaesthesia Br. J. Anaesth., December 1, 2005; 95(6): 811 - 815. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
A. Webb and S. Leong The Combination of Tramadol and Morphine May Be Recommended for Postoperative Analgesia Anesth. Analg., December 1, 2005; 101(6): 1884 - 1885. [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
T. A. Marcou, S. Marque, J.-X. Mazoit, and D. Benhamou The Median Effective Dose of Tramadol and Morphine for Postoperative Patients: A Study of Interactions Anesth. Analg., February 1, 2005; 100(2): 469 - 474. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
