Postoperative pain

Perioperative pain assessment and management in neurosurgical patients varies widely across the globe. There is lack of data from developing world regarding practices of pain assessment and management in neurosurgical population.

A survey aimed to capture practices and perceptions regarding perioperative pain assessment and management in neurosurgical patients among anesthesiologists who are members of the Indian Society of Neuroanaesthesiology and Critical Care (ISNACC) and evaluated if hospital and pain characteristics predicted the use of structured pain assessment protocol and use of opioids for postoperative pain management.

A 26-item English language questionnaire was administered to members of ISNACC using Kwiksurveys platform after ethics committee approval. This outcome measures were adoption of structured protocol for pain assessment and opioid usage for postoperative pain management.

The response rate for this survey was 55.15% (289/524). One hundred eighteen (41%) responders informed that their hospital setup had a structured pain protocol while 43 (15%) responders reported using opioids for postoperative pain management. Predictors of the use of structured pain protocol were private setup (odds ratio [OR] 2.64; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.52-4.59; p=0.001), higher pain intensity (OR 0.37; 95% CI 0.21-0.64; p<0.001) and use of pain scale (OR 7.94; 95% CI 3.99-15.81; p<0.001) while availability of structured pain protocol (OR 2.04; 95% CI 1.02-4.05; p=0.043) was the only significant variable for postoperative opioid use.

Less than half of the Indian neuroanesthesiologists who are members of ISNACC use structured protocol for pain assessment and very few use opioids for postoperative pain management in neurosurgical patients ¹⁾.

Studying the characteristics of postoperative pain at such an early stage allows for improved management. It helps to predict, according to the type of surgery and the anaesthesia used, those patients in which higher VAS values may be seen and to better adapt analgesic therapy ²⁾.

Despite advances in surgical and anesthesiology techniques, many patients continue to experience postoperative pain after lumbar disc operations

The administration of tramadol with paracetamol was more effective than tramadol alone for early acute postoperative pain therapy following lumbar discectomy. Therefore while adding paracetamol in early pain management is recommended, continuing paracetamol for the late postoperative period is not advised ³⁾.

Etiology

Epidural fibrosis and epidural adhesion after laminectomy are developed from adjacent dense scar tissue, which is a natural wound healing process ^{4) 5) 6) 7)} , and ranked as the major contributor for postoperative pain recurrence after laminectomy or discectomy.

Treatment

The goal of postoperative pain management is to relieve pain while keeping side effects to a minimum. After hundreds of years of advances, the mainstay of pain therapy is still the opioids. While they are very effective analgesics, opioids also carry with them many undesirable side effects: sedation, respiratory depression, nausea and vomiting, hypotension and bradycardia, pruritus, and inhibition of bowel function. The treatment of complications such as nausea and pruritus may include the administration of antihistamines, which have an additive effect on sedation and respiratory depression.

References