Novel pharmaceuticals in the management of postoperative pain

Novel pharmaceutical advances in postoperative pain management include both non-opioid adjuvants as well as opioid analgesics. Optimizing postoperative analgesics includes improving onset of action, matching duration of analgesia to the setting of use, and minimizing adverse events. To improve on the current standard of care, the physicochemical properties of new analgesics and route of administration must be taken into consideration in order to achieve these three goals. Appropriately, patient satisfaction with postoperative pain is a key emphasis in hospital-focused patient satisfaction surveys, thereby focusing much-needed attention on improvement of care in the postoperative setting from both an analgesic efficacy and safety standpoint.