[Peridural opiate analgesia. Clinical results of a 2-year study]

Postoperative pain relief, consumption of analgesics and the incidence of postoperative complications were investigated in a retrospective cohort-study on 470 patients following abdominal surgery. 221 of these patients received epidural morphine or buprenorphine for postoperative pain relief (Group I). Another group of 249 patients received conventional opiate analgesics intravenously or intramuscularly (Group II). On average the analgesia lasted 14 h after epidural morphine and 11 h after epidural buprenorphine. The overall amount of morphine in the postoperative period was 13.3 +/- 14.9 mg and 0.89 +/- 0.55 mg buprenorphine respectively. 5 cases of pneumonia (2.3%) were seen in the epidural group (Group I). 22 pneumonia cases (8.8%) were registered in the group with conventional analgesics (Group II). Besides the advantage of stronger and longer duration, small dosage and minor central depressive side effects, epidural opiate analgesia has proven to result in positive clinical consequences. The low incidence of postoperative pneumonia is due to the strong regional pain relief, which improves mechanical pulmonary function and gas exchange.