Reduction of the opioid needs after administration of lornoxicam for the relief of postoperative pain in orhtopedic patients

Hippokratia 2003, 7(1):33-36

Z Kanonidou, P Tsaousidis, D Iordanidou, D Atmatzidis, G Vergoulas, F Aidoni
3rd Anaesthesiology Dpt, Hippokratio General Hospital, Thessaloniki, Greece


Abstract

We studied 50 patients who underwent a median severity orthopedic surgery of lower extremities with spinal anesthesia. Twenty f ive patients of the group A received as postoperative analgesia meperidine combined with a nonsteroidal antilammatory drug (NSAID), Lornoxicam, in a dose of 8 mg i.v., while the rest twenty five patients of the group B received meperidine alone. We recorded the opioid needs, assessing the pain intensity every 6 hours using the Visual Analogue Scale of pain (VAS).
The meperidine dose combined and not with Lornoxicam was: 0.72±0.07 /1.02±0.06 mg / kg, 0.69±0.08 / 0.97±0.07 mg / kg, 0.62±0.08 / 0.87±0.09 mg / kg, 0.54±0.08 / 0.74±0.11 mg / kg, 0.53±0.08 / 0.64±0.08 mg / kg, in 0, 6, 12, 18 and 24 hours respectively (p: 0.0005). We found that the patients of the combined opioids-NSAIDs group consumed a lower opioid dose related to the patients who received only opioids. The postoperative pain more efficiently by decreasing the opioid side-effects.