An audit of analgesia requirements for high-dose-rate prostate brachytherapy

We audited the analgesic, anti-emetic and anti-spasmodic drug usage of patients undergoing high-dose-rate brachytherapy for prostate cancer at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. With institutional ethics committee approval, we retrospectively reviewed the records of the first 45 patients undergoing high-dose-rate prostate brachytherapy from January 2003 to July 2005. We collected data regarding the dose of intra- and postoperative analgesics and the anti-emetic and anti-spasmodic drugs administered for the duration of the patients' hospital stay. We converted oral oxycodone doses to parenteral morphine equivalents for the purposes of this study, dividing the oxycodone dose by three. The median age of the patients was 69 (range 55 to 80) years. All had general anaesthesia for the catheter insertion procedure. Twenty-five patients (56%) received intraoperative morphine from 5 to 12 mg (mean 9 mg). Forty-three patients (96%) received regular postoperative paracetamol (1 g qid). Thirty-six patients (80%) required additional postoperative opioid administration with an overall mean (all 45 patients included) of 14.5 mg of parenteral morphine equivalents over the entire postoperative course. Thirty-nine patients received intraoperative hyoscine butylbromide to reduce bladder spasm. Fourteen patients were administered antiemetics. These findings indicate that analgesic requirements during the period in which the prostate brachytherapy catheters remained in place were minimal in most cases. Simple analgesic regimens (regular oral paracetamol, antispasmodics as required for bladder spasm and oral/subcutaneous opioids as required) appear to have been adequate for our patients.