Steroids and postoperative analgesia.

The postoperative analgesic requirements of a group of patients receiving high doses of corticosteroids for 48 hours postoperatively were studied. It was found that the opioid requirement of the group was significantly less than that of a control group undergoing similar surgery but not receiving steroids (p less than 0.001). The steroid group required approximately half the opioid dose of the control group. Possible explanations of the effect include the anti-inflammatory action of steroids and competitive inhibition of a common metabolic pathway in the liver.