Bk. Stanley et al., COMPARISON OF PATIENT-CONTROLLED ANALGESIA VERSUS INTRAMUSCULAR NARCOTICS IN RESOLUTION OF POSTOPERATIVE ILEUS AFTER RADICAL RETROPUBIC PROSTATECTOMY, The Journal of urology, 150(5), 1993, pp. 1434-1436
Patient-controlled analgesia has become standard practice after major
abdominal operations. benefits of patient-controlled analgesia have be
en well documented. However, its possible effect of prolonging postope
rative ileus has not been well examined. To determine if patient-contr
olled analgesia prolongs postoperative ileus when compared to conventi
onal intramuscular narcotics, a retrospective review of length of post
operative ileus in 98 consecutive patients (62 using patient-controlle
d analgesia and 36 using intramuscular narcotics) undergoing bilateral
pelvic lymphadenectomy and radical retropubic prostatectomy was done.
The patients receiving patient-controlled analgesia resolved the post
operative ileus an average of 1.0 day later than the intramuscular inj
ection group (5.2 days versus 4.2 days p <0.0001). Overall hospital st
ay was not significantly affected. Our results show that patient-contr
olled analgesia use prolongs postoperative ileus.