Epidural versus patient-controlled analgesia with morphine for postoperative pain after orthopaedic procedures in children.

Abstract

We compared epidural and patient-controlled analgesia using morphine for pain relief during the first 30 h after orthopaedic surgery to examine whether intermittent epidural morphine (EM) offered a clinical advantage over patient-controlled analgesia in children. Forty patients were assigned randomly to receive either EM or morphine by the patient-controlled analgesia technique. In the special care unit, trained observers evaluated the patient's level of postoperative pain with a standardized objective pain scale. The differences in pain scores among the groups were compared. The two groups were not significantly different in age, weight, duration of operation, or anesthesia. There was no significant difference in quality of pain relief except for the amount of medicine required to control postoperative pain and the incidence of side effects between the two groups.