OBJECTIVE: To analyze the efficacy of the preemptive analgesia with a method of epidural analgesic administration before and after the surgical painful stimulation, as comparing them. Its role in postoperative pain relief after lumbosacral spinal surgery, by the posterior approach, has not been fully investigated. METHODS: Sixty two patients who underwent microdiscectomy or microdecompression in a single level of the lumbosacral spine were divided into three groups: 20 patients that had not received any analgesic medication in the first one (A) (control); 22 that had been submitted to the epidural injection containing 10 mL of marcaína and morphine 20 minutes before the surgical incision in the second one (B). In the third and last group (C), 20 patients received the same drugs of group B, with the aid of a catheter positioned in the epidural space, through the incision before the closing of the surgical wound. The patients were examined during the first 24 hours, with the use of the verbal scale of pain. RESULTS: The three groups were compared concerning age, sex, level and surgical time. Data did not have a normal Gaussiana distribution, the non-parametric Mann-Whitney test was adopted for statistical analysis. Therefore, the rating values of the verbal scale for pain intensity, in all the time intervals, were significantly low (p<0.0001) between the second and the third group in comparison to the first one. It indicates a significantly better pain relief in groups B and C, to the detriment of Group A, in this demand for supplemental analgesic medication in the postoperative period within the first 24 hours. No specific complication due to the procedure was registered, except the facial pruritus in one patient, which was a transient and appropriately treated effect with antihistaminic medication. CONCLUSION: Preemptive analgesia with morphine and marcaína showed to be a safe, simple and effective method for the control of postoperative pain relief, in the lumbosacral spinal surgery, by posterior approach within the first 24 hours, preventing the supplemental analgesic medication.
Analgesia; Spine; Lumbosacral region; Epidural analgesia; Anesthetics, local; Pain, postoperative; Pain, postoperative
