[Postoperative pain therapy after radical prostatectomy with and without epidural analgesia]

Epidural analgesia for postoperative pain treatment is favored, for example, within the scope of so-called fast-track surgery, especially abdominal surgery. To improve pain care for our urological patients, we examined the quality of postoperative pain therapy with and without epidural analgesia after radical prostatectomy. After the investigation was approved by the local ethics committee, patients were questioned in detail about the pain they experienced for 7 days after radical prostatectomy. For all 7 postoperative observation days, significantly less pain was measured for patients receiving epidural analgesia compared with patients without epidural analgesia. This could be shown for the average and strongest pain intensity at rest as well as for pain during mobilization. Patients with epidural analgesia were discharged, on average, 1 day earlier. After radical prostatectomy, postoperative pain therapy with epidural analgesia seems to offer advantages with regard to the quality of analgesia and the average length of hospital stay.