Intravenous tenoxicam to treat acute renal colic: comparison with buscopan compositum.

Forty-seven patients with acute renal colic were treated with either tenoxicam 20 mg i.v. or buscopan compositum (hyoscine butylbromide 20 mg and dipyrone 2.5 g) i.v. in a double blind study. Renal colic was diagnosed with use of a general urine examination, intravenous urogram, ultrasonography or voiding of calculus. The severity of symptoms were assessed by a verbal six point scale. Results demonstrated that 80% of patients treated with tenoxicam and 72.7% of patients treated with buscopan compositum showed significant improvement after 1 hour. Sixty-two percent of the patients who showed initial response to buscopan compositum had pain relapse during next 24 hours and required rescue treatment with pethidine 100 mg i.m. None of the patients treated with tenoxicam i.v. had pain relapse. No side effects were reported with use of tenoxicam. It is concluded that tenoxicam i.v. was more effective than antispasmodics and has rapid onset of analgesia and prolonged action in the treatment of acute renal colic.