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Postop anesthetic eye drops reduce need for opioid pain relief
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WASHINGTON — Even when care is taken to perform “gentle” strabismus surgery, patients still have a need for pain relief postoperatively, a speaker at the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus meeting said.
Rather than giving the narcotic sufentanil in those cases, Jon Peiter Saunte, MD, and colleagues at University of Copenhagen studied whether use of oxybuprocaine 0.4% anesthetic eye drops in both eyes postoperatively could reduce the demand for sufentanil.
In a first cohort of 53 pediatric patients who were not given anesthetic eye drops, 83% had pain requiring sufentanil postoperatively. For a second cohort of 37 pediatric patients, nurses were instructed to first give topical oxybuprocaine for pain before resorting to giving sufentanil. Only 24% of patients in this cohort needed the opioid relief.
In a cohort of 91 adults, similarly 82% needed sufentanil for pain when no anesthetic drops were given. In 72 adult patients given anesthetic drops postoperatively for pain, only 3% required opioid relief.
“We think that strabismus surgery may induce pain even when we try to do it as gently as possible,” Saunte said. “We found in our group if we only give ... anesthetic eye drop after surgery, the need for other pain treatment dropped dramatically.” – by Patricia Nale, ELS
Reference:
Saunte JP. Analgesic eyedrops reduce opioid demand after strabismus surgery. Presented at: American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus meeting; March 18-22, 2018; Washington.
Disclosure: Saunte reports no relevant financial disclosures.