Failure of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation and indomethacin to reduce opiate requirement following cholecystectomy

Abstract

This randomized study examined the effect of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) and indomethacin on postoperative opiate requirement in 60 patients after cholecystectomy. An open intravenous bolus of 25 mg of indomethacin followed by an infusion of 5 mg in 1 h, alone or combined with either low or high frequency TENS, was administered during the study period of 16 h. An intravenous bolus of either 5 mg of oxycodone or 0.15 mg of buprenorphine was administered double blindly for postoperative pain relief. The number of doses of buprenorphine given (3, 9) differed (P = 0.01) from the number of doses of oxycodone given (5, 4). Neither indomethacin nor TENS reduced the postoperative opiate requirement.

Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) can reduce postoperative analgesic consumption. A meta‐analysis with assessment of optimal treatment parameters for postoperative pain

“…Nineteen of these had to be excluded as they met our exclusion criteria for non‐randomisation as defined by Carroll et al (1996). Another 11 trials (Rainov et al, 1994; Rosenberg et al, 1978; Pike, 1978; Stubbing and Jellicoe, 1988; Reuss et al, 1988; Hargreaves and Lander, 1989; Bayindir et al, 1991; Jones and Hutchinson, 1991; Laitinen and Nuutinen, 1991; Walker et al, 1991; Chiu et al, 1999) had to be excluded for various reasons (see Table 1).…”

Postoperative transkutane elektrische Nervenstimulation (TENS)

“…Postoperativ wurde TENS bei verschiedenen Indikationen eingesetzt: nach Appendektomien,Sectiones,Cholezystektomien,Laminektomien; nach Hüftprothesen,Knieprothesen,operativen Thorakotomien und Hernienoperationen [3,8,9,17,22,26,28,29,31,33,34,35,38]. Die Ergebnisse dieser Studien sind widersprüchlich.…”