Comparison of paracetamol and pentazocine suppositories for pain relief after tonsillectomy in adults.

The pain-relieving effect of paracetamol 500 mg or pentazocine 50 mg suppositories was studied in 91 voluntary adult patients after tonsillectomy in halothane or enflurane anaesthesia. Both suppositories were studied after both anaesthetics. Thus the patients were randomly allocated to four study groups. At 60 min after administration of coded suppositories, 46-50% of the patients in various groups needed extra analgesic and received pethidine 1 mg/kg i.m. Thereafter, the pain relief was satisfactory in all groups until the end of the observation period (120 min). The incidence of vomiting, the most common side effect, ranged from 5 to 14% in the groups. Bleeding from the operation site was most common (14%) in the patients treated with pentazocine after enflurane anaesthesia and did not occur in the patients treated with pentazocine after halothane anaesthesia. The incidence of bleeding in both paracetamol groups was 9%. In all cases, bleeding stopped without any special treatment. The results suggest that both paracetamol 500 mg and pentazocine 50 mg suppositories in the doses used were weak analgesics for throat pain after tonsillectomy in adults in the early postoperative period. The incidence of side effects was relatively low.