A Comparison of Intravenous Oxycodone and Parecoxib in the Treatment of Visceral Pain after Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy

Abstract

Background: Visceral pain is the most common form of pain that affects human beings. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) is also accompanied by severe postoperative pain, especially visceral pain. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory durgs (NSAIDs) can relieve the postoperative pain but with a high percentage of side effects. It has been suggested that the analgesic effect on visceral pain of oxycodone is superior and with less side effects. This study is to compare the effects of parecoxib sodium with oxycodone on visceral pain.Methods: Seventy patients were randomized to two groups. Patients in group oxycodone (group O, N=35) received oxycodone 0.05 mg/kg intravenously (i.v.) and patients in group parecoxib (group P, N=35) received parecoxib 40 mg i.v. before the end of surgery. Patients in both groups were local anesthetized with 10 ml 1% ropivacaine (10 mg/ml) at the four trocar sites. Then the numeric rating scale (NRS) scores at rest and when coughing were assessed at the following time points: at arrival to postanesthesia care unit (PACU) (T1), 30 minutes in the PACU (T2), 2 (T3), 6 (T4) and 24 hours (T5) postoperatively, furthermore, side effects and rescued analgesic were also recorded.Results: Deep abdominal pain on NRS scores in group O at 6 hours was significantly lower than that in group P at rest (2[1-3] vs. 3[2-4.5], P=0.002) and when coughing (2[2-3] vs. 4[3-6], P<0.001). Ratios of mild/severe deep abdominal pain at rest at 6 hours were 20/13 vs. 30/3 (P=0.008) in group P and group O, respectively. Ratios of mild/severe deep abdominal pain were 14/19 vs. 23/10 (P=0.046) at 2 hours and 14/19 vs. 25/8 (P=0.012) at 6 hours when coughing in group P and group O, respectively.Conclusions: Oxycodone was more potent than parecoxib for visceral pain relief with no obvious side effects. Citation: Rui Wang, Dong-Xu Yao, Tian-Long Wang, Wei Xiao, Yang Liu. A comparison of intravenous oxycodone and parecoxib in the treatment of visceral pain after laparoscopic cholecystectomy. J Anesth Perioper Med 2015; 2: 295-300. doi: 10.24015/JAPM.2015.0040This is an open-access article, published by Evidence Based Communications (EBC). This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format for any lawful purpose. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.