COMPARISON OF THE PATIENT-CONTROLLED EPIDURAL AND INTRAVENOUS ANALGESIA AFTER OPEN COLORECTAL SURGERY: A RANDOMIZED...

The goal of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of two common analgesic techniques: patient-controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA) and patient-controlled intravenous analgesia (IVPCA) in patients undergoing open colorectal surgeries. 130 patients were randomized in two groups: group I - n=65 (27 males, 38 females, age range 23-75) - whose postoperative period and pain was managed with PCEA; group II - n=65 (31 male, 34 female, age range 23-75) - whose postoperative period and pain was managed with IVPCA. There were no significant differences by demographic and preoperative factors between the groups. The study demonstrates, that both analgesia techniques in colorectal surgery patients, IVPCA and PCEA, resulted in high levels of satisfaction (as reflected by a median score of 4 on the 1-5 scale), and provided effective management of postoperative pain. There were no differences in the pain scores on the postoperative visual analogue scales, analgesic requirements and satisfaction score between groups. This indicates that IVPCA and Epidural PCA are equally effective to control the postoperative pain after open colorectal surgery.