Effects of two different techniques of postoperative analgesia management in liver transplant donors: a prospective, randomized, double-blind study.

The aim of this study was the compare the donor patients who received intravenous (IV) morphine with patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) or epidural morphine during the early postoperative period who underwent liver transplantation. Forty patients were included in the study and randomly divided into 2 groups in a double-blinded manner. They were given IV morphine 5 mg (Group C), or epidural anesthesia adding morphine (2 mg; Group E) by epidural anesthesia technique starting 15 minutes before the estimated time of completion of surgery. All of the patients received PCA with IV morphine (Group C; PCA device was set to deliver 1 mg morphine with a lockout of 15 minutes and a 4-hour limit of 20 mg, and no continuous infusion) or epidural morphine (Group E; patient-controlled epidural analgesia [PCEA] device was set to deliver 0.5 mg morphine with a lockout of 30 minutes and a 4-hour limit of 10 mg, and no continuous infusion) and were followed up for 24 hours, and pain scores were evaluated by study nurses who were blinded to the study protocol. The visual analogue scale (VAS) scores at rest and at movement and morphine consumption at 12 and 24 hours after operation evaluation time points were significantly higher in Group E than those in Group C (P < .05). Furthermore, total morphine consumption in Group C was significantly higher than that in Group E (P < .05). Epidural morphine via PCEA was associated with decreased postoperative VAS scores and morphine consumption. These findings may be beneficial for managing postoperative analgesia protocols in liver transplant donor patients.