Peripherally administered sufentanil inhibits pain perception after postpartum tubal ligation

The clinical effectiveness of locally administered opioids is still under d iscussion; in particular, the potency of morphine in settings other than in tra-articular arthroscopy has been questioned. We developed another pain mo del, postpartum resection of the fallopian tubes for sterilisation, in whic h 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 pl ain 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 inf iltration, which in 11 patients lasted until the end of the observation per iod 24 h postoperatively; no difference was observed in the control group. In our pain model with a high assay sensitivity, the infiltration of one si de with the lipophilic test drug, sufentanil, caused local analgesia in pri marily non-inflamed tissue. The use of each patient as her own control excl uded inter-subject bias. (C) 1999 International Association for the Study o f Pain. Published by Elsevier Science B.V.