• E Ozturk, A Yilmazlar, F Coskun, O Isik, and T Yilmazlar.
• Department of General Surgery, Uludag University School of Medicine, Gorukle 16069, Bursa, Turkey. drozturk@uludag.edu.tr
• Tech Coloproctol. 2011 Sep 1;15(3):331-6.

BackgroundPreperitoneal catheter analgesia following abdominal surgery has attracted interest in the last decade. We conducted this study to evaluate the benefits of preperitoneal catheter analgesia in managing pain after abdominal colon and rectal resections.MethodsA total of 50 patients undergoing colon and rectal resections for benign and malignant diseases received analgesic medicines via an epidural catheter placed just prior to surgery and a preperitoneal catheter placed at the end of the surgical procedure. Patients were instructed to use the epidural patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) device freely and were randomized into two groups after obtaining the approval of the Institutional Review Board: Group A received 10 ml of levobupivacaine twice a day postoperatively via preperitoneal catheter and group B received only 10 ml of saline. Demographics, surgical characteristics, pain scores recorded four days following surgery, analgesic volume used from the epidural PCA, clinical outcomes (length of stay, time to first bowel movement, time to first passage of gas or stool, time to first oral intake) and respiratory function test results (preoperative vs. postoperative) were compared.ResultsThere were no significant differences in demographics or surgical characteristics between both groups. Pain scores were similar. Clinical outcomes and respiratory functions were comparable. The use of analgesic volume via epidural catheter was significantly lower in group A than in group B (P = 0.032).ConclusionsPreperitoneal catheter analgesia significantly decreased the need for epidural drug consumption and proved to be a beneficial adjunct for postoperative pain management of patients who underwent colon and rectal resections.

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