Peripherally administered sufentanil inhibits pain perception after postpartum tubal ligation.

The clinical effectiveness of locally administered opioids is still under discussion; in particular, the potency of morphine in settings other than intra-articular arthroscopy has been questioned. We developed another pain model, postpartum resection of the fallopian tubes for sterilisation, in which each patient serves as her own control when one side is infiltrated with the active drug (in this study sufentanil 5 mg) and the contralateral side with normal saline. In the control group both sides are infiltrated with plain saline. After 30 min from the end of anaesthesia onwards, 26 out of 30 patients observed significant pain relief on the side of the sufentanil infiltration, which in 11 patients lasted until the end of the observation period 24 h postoperatively; no difference was observed in the control group. In our pain model with a high assay sensitivity, the infiltration of one side with the lipophilic test drug, sufentanil, caused local analgesia in primarily non-inflamed tissue. The use of each patient as her own control excluded inter-subject bias.

RCT Entities:   Population Interventions Outcomes