Comparison of prilocaine and bupivacaine for post-arthroscopy analgesia: a placebo-controlled double-blind trial.

Arthroscopic surgery requires early postoperative analgesia for early discharge and early rehabilitation of patients. To accomplish the effectiveness of intraarticular application of local anesthetics, a placebo-controlled double-blind trial was performed. Results were evaluated using the visual analog scale on a blind basis. The mean pain scores were generally lower in the bupivacaine group than in the control or prilocaine group. There were no statistically significant differences between the oral intake of analgesics and the level of analgesia obtained in all three groups. We consider the local application of analgesics to be ineffective for post-arthroscopy analgesia.