Oral analgesia in fixed-time interval administration versus spinal morphine for post-Cesarean pain: a randomised controlled trial

Enav Yefet, Salih Nassar, Julia Carmeli, Manal Massalha, Jamal Hasanein, Noah Zafran, Michael Rudin, Zohar Nachum

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Purpose: To compare the efficacy of fixed-time-interval oral analgesia and spinal-morphine for management of post-Cesarean pain. Methods: In this open-label, parallel-group, randomized, controlled trial, 200 women due to undergo elective Caesarean section with spinal anaesthesia were enrolled between July 2015 and April 2016. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either spinal fentanyl followed by oral doses of tramadol, paracetamol, and diclofenac at predetermined regular intervals of 6 h for the first 48 h, and rescue treatment with percocet (oxycodone and paracetamol; oral analgesia group), or spinal morphine and rescue treatment with oral tramadol, paracetamol, and diclofenac (spinal-morphine group). The primary outcomes were pain intensity during the postoperative 48 h, measured on a 10-point numeric rating scale (NRS) and expressed as area under the curve (AUC), and the number of breakthrough events of moderate to severe pain (defined as NRS score ≥ 4). Results: The oral analgesia group compared to the spinal-morphine group had similar mean pain intensity (AUC (120 ± 35 versus 121 ± 31, respectively; p = 0.8) but more events of moderate-to-severe breakthrough pain (4.8 ± 2 versus 3.8 ± 1.7, respectively; p = 0.0002). Higher rates and longer durations of pruritus, nausea, and vomiting were reported among patients receiving spinal morphine, as compared with oral analgesia. Satisfaction scores were high in both groups (8.2 ± 2.4 versus 8.7 ± 1.8 in the oral analgesia and spinal morphine, respectively; p = 0.23). Conclusions: Both oral analgesia at fixed time intervals and spinal morphine are satisfactory methods for treating post-Caesarean pain. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02440399, date of registration: 07/05/ 2015. URL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02440399?term=enav+yefet&rank=7.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)893-901
Number of pages9
JournalArchives of Gynecology and Obstetrics
Volume305
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.

Keywords

  • Oral analgesia
  • Post-Caesarean pain
  • Postpartum
  • Spinal morphine

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