Association between postoperative pain and analgesic use in minimally invasive cardiac surgery

This study aimed to investigate the effects of surgical methods on pain duration and oral analgesic administration in patients who underwent cardiac surgery using various minimally invasive methods.

We included 90 patients who underwent an anterior incision with costal cartilage transection, lateral incision without costal cartilage transection, or total endoscopic cardiac surgery using a lateral incision and no retractor. Oral analgesics were postoperatively administered upon patient request. All the patients were instructed to rate their pain during the daytime 3 and 7 days postoperatively.

Between-group differences included surgical method, wound size, operation/cardiopulmonary bypass time/cardiac arrest time, and intraoperative fentanyl dose. No differences were found in sex, age, diabetes status, paravertebral block use, or blood loss. The number of postoperative days, postoperative analgesic use, and pain 3 days postoperatively demonstrated no difference. Pain ratings were most severe for the costal cartilage resection group and least severe for the total endoscopic cardiac surgery group 7 days postoperatively. Similarly, patients who underwent costal cartilage research exhibited the highest rate of analgesic use for 30 days postoperatively, whereas patients who underwent total endoscopic cardiac surgery demonstrated the lowest.

We revealed significant between-group differences in pain prevalence and postoperative oral analgesic administration in patients who underwent cardiac surgery relative to the minimally invasive surgical method used.