The Management of Postoperative Pale. Drugs and Anesthetic Techniques

摘要

Effective pain relief is very important to treat any patient undergoing surgery. This should be achieved not only for ethical and humanitarian reasons, but also in order to obtain a smoother postoperative course, an earlier discharge from hospital, and a reduction of onset of chronic pain syndromes. In fact, there is now evidence that pain relief has significant physiological benefit. Analgesia for postoperative pain relief has traditionally been provided with widespread use of intramuscolar opioids. However, after surgery, patients frequently experience severe pain and a significant portion receive less than adequate analgesia [1-3]. Furthermore, surveys in the 1980s show that as high as 30%-75% of patients still receive inadequate pain treatment in the postoperative period, in spite of an increasing consciousness of this issue [4-7]. It is remarkable that Smith, in an.editorial, asserted "what is so surprising is that, this deplorable state of affairs has persisted and continues.to persist in many hospital, despite considerable advances in the pharmacology of analgesic drugs and description of new and improved methods of relieving pain" [8].