Trend of analgesic consumption and pain scores in the post anesthetic care unit (A 9-year survey in surgical cancer patients)

Abstract

Background and methodsAs part of a quality assurance program, we assessed the trend of our analgesic consumption using our anesthesia database which include anesthesia and postanesthetic care records for all patients. In recent years, emphasis was made on anesthesia personnel to decrease postoperative opioid analgesic at the expense of non-opioid analgesics in order to decrease opioid related side effects. The following items were recorded: intraoperative opioid consumption, total morphine consumption, non-opioid analgesic consumption pain and sedation scores in the postoperative care unit (PACU). ResultsThe database consisted of 57,967 patients for 9 consecutive years from 2002 to 2010, mean data exhaustivity was of 95%. Total morphine consumption per patient in the operative room and in the PACU decreased significantly from 11±4mg in year 2002 to 7±3mg in 2010, P<0.05. In the intraoperative period, remifentanil/sufentanil ratio increased significantly from 33/67 to 87/13% of patients (P<0.05) without affecting pain scores in the PACU. DiscussionThis multi-year trend shows a significant decrease in overall postoperative morphine consumption, in addition we showed that computerized database can easily follow the trend of analgesic consumption and can be used therefore as a powerful tool with easy access as part of a quality assurance program.