Post-operative pain management. (Cochrane Systematic Review)

This month sees the landmark publication of an authoritative Cochrane overview of systematic reviews of oral analgesics for acute post-operative pain in adults.The lead author, Professor Andrew Moore describes this study in this month's podcasts Pain management is a routine feature of everyday medicine. To the uninitiated, post-operative analgesia is often considered a straightforward pain problem. After all, the extent and timing of tissue damage are predictable, the damage occurs normally in controlled circumstances in a clinical environment with access to analgesia, and in many societies there is choice of analgesic strategy. However, despite the ubiquity of pain and analgesic practice, post-operative pain management is commonly reported to be poor. In part, the limited success of routine post-operative pain management may be due to a lack of clarity on the evidence base for different pain management interventions and strategies. Eccleston C. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2011 Sep 5;10:ED000033. PMID: 21975793  (click here to listen to the podcast).