Postoperative epidural bupivacaine-morphine therapy. Experience with 4,227 surgical cancer patients

We prospectively studied surgical cancer patients who received epidural bupivacaine-morphine to determine perioperative morphine use, side effects, and complications.

All study patients received general-epidural anesthesia followed by epidural analgesia with 0.05% or 0.1% bupivacaine and 0.01% morphine at a rate of 5-10 ml.h-1 to keep the dynamic pain score at less than 5 (of 10). Patients were evaluated daily for pain relief, side effects, catheter migration, accidental removal, hypotension, respiratory rate, mental status changes, nausea and vomiting, and pruritus.

Over 4 yr, 4,227 patients (61% women, aged 68 +/- 24 yr) were studied. Lumbar epidural catheters (n = 2,248 or 53.18%) were used more frequently than thoracic catheters (n = 1,979 or 46.82%) (P < 0.00001). Most of the patients were discharged to the surgical wards after the procedures (n = 3,001, 71%). Those patients (n = 1,226, 29%) admitted to the surgical intensive care unit, spent 1.2 +/- 0.8 days. Epidural catheter failure occurred in 283 (6.3%) patients. Length of epidural analgesia therapy was 6.3 +/- 2.6 days. There were three cases (0.07%) of respiratory depression which were treated with oxygen, intravenous naloxone, and by stopping the epidural infusion for 6 h. Hypotension occurred in 126 patients (3%). There were no apparent cases of catheter migration to either the subdural or subarachnoid space. Nausea or vomiting occurred in 929 patients (22%). Pruritus occurred in 930 patients (22%).

Continuous epidural analgesia with 0.05-0.1% bupivacaine and 0.01% morphine is an effective method of postoperative analgesia with a low incidence of side effects, that can be safely administered on the surgical wards with no special monitoring equipment.