Contents 6 7 This dissertation is based on the following original publications, which will be referred to in the text by their Roman numerals I-V. Comparison of analgesic efficacy of oxycodone and morphine in postoperative intravenous patient-controlled analgesia. Efficacy and side effects of tramadol versus oxycodone for patient-controlled analgesia after maxillofacial surgery. Comparison of i...

Patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) with i.v. opioids is prescribed increasingly. We report three cases of norpethidine toxicity in patients receiving pethidine by PCA.

Two incidence have occurred in our hospital when a patient-controlled analgesia pump has accidentally delivered the whole contents of the syringe of diamorphine (60 mg) over a period of approximately 1 h. Electrical corruption of the pumps' program has been identified as the probable cause. All pumps of this type have been modified to prevent such occurrences.

We have studied the complications associated with three techniques used to maintain extradural analgesia in labour: midwife top-up doses of 0.25% bupivacaine 10 ml, continuous infusion of 0.125% bupivacaine 10 ml h-1 and patient-controlled extradural analgesia (PCEA) with self-administered 3-ml bolus doses of 0.25% bupivacaine. A significantly higher intervention rate by an anaesthetist was req...

Remifentanil patient-controlled analgesia is well established in many centres and provides satisfactory pain relief for many women in labour. We describe a patient using remifentanil patient-controlled analgesia who suffered a respiratory arrest requiring a brief period of ventilation. In our institution, remifentanil patient-controlled analgesia has been offered to women in labour since 2009. ...

BACKGROUND Perioperative thoracic epidural analgesia reduces stress response and pain scores and may improve outcome after cardiac surgery. This prospective, randomized trial was designed to compare the effectiveness of patient-controlled thoracic epidural analgesia with patient-controlled analgesia with intravenous morphine on postoperative hospital length of stay and patients' perception of t...

BACKGROUND The current standard labor epidural analgesic regimens consist of a local anesthetic in combination with an opioid delivered via continuous epidural infusion (CEI). With CEI local anesthetic, doses may be large with resulting profound motor blockade potentially affecting the incidence of instrumental deliveries. In this systematic review of randomized controlled trials (RCTs), we com...

BACKGROUND The objective of this meta-analysis was to compare the efficacy and safety of patient-controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA) and patient-controlled intravenous analgesia (PCIA) in postoperative analgesia of spinal fusion surgery. METHODS Potential academic articles were identified from the Cochrane Library, Medline (1966-2015.5), PubMed (1966-2015.5), Embase (1980-2015.5) and Science...

STUDY DESIGN A prospective, randomized, double-blind clinical trial. OBJECTIVE To compare the efficacy of postoperative continuous epidural analgesia versus patient-controlled analgesia in patients undergoing lumbar fusion. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA Controversy remains regarding the optimal strategy for postoperative pain control. METHODS Fifty-four patients were divided into two treatme...