Postoperative pain management: a national prospective study including 3879 patients
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Emile Daurel1, Raïko Blondonnet2, Olivier Ruinet3
1Univ Rennes, CHU Rennes, Service d'anesthésie-réanimation 2 et centre d'évaluation et de traitement de la douleur, F-35000 Rennes, France.
Background:
Postoperative pain management remains a critical issue in peri-operative medicine, but contemporary national data are lacking.
Methods:
AlgoSFAR 2 was a prospective, multicentre and observational study, conducted in randomly selected French surgical centres. Adult patients undergoing elective surgery were included. Pain was assessed at rest and during mobilization over the first three postoperative days. Secondary outcomes included postoperative opioid consumption and multimodal analgesia strategies defined as the use of at least two non-opioid strategies such as analgesics and/or regional anaesthesia.
Results:
A total of 3879 patients from 80 centres were analysed. While pre-operative and immediate postoperative pain levels at rest were low, pain peaked on day 1, with high interindividual variability, and 6% of patients reported severe pain. Two thirds (66%) did not need any rescue opioids postoperatively. Overall, 95% received multimodal analgesia.
Conclusion:
These results highlight a major change in postoperative pain management in France, with broad adoption of multimodal opioid-sparing strategies. Nonetheless, a minority of patients still experience severe pain, highlighting the need for personalized management.
Trial Registration:
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT06487442.
