• Michael Sommer, José W J M Geurts, Bjorn Stessel, Alfons G H Kessels, Madelon L Peters, Jacob Patijn, Maarten van Kleef, Bernd Kremer, and Marco A E Marcus.
• University Hospital Maastricht, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Treatment, PO Box 5800, 6202 AZ Maastricht, The Netherlands. mso@sane.azm.nl
• Arch. Otolaryngol. Head Neck Surg. 2009 Feb 1; 135 (2): 124-30.

ObjectiveTo determine postoperative pain in different types of ear, nose, and throat (ENT) surgery and their psychological preoperative predictors.DesignProspective cohort study.SettingAcademic hospital.PatientsA total of 217 patients undergoing ENT surgery.InterventionsAll ENT, neck, and salivary gland surgery.Main Outcome MeasuresPostoperative pain and predictors for postoperative pain.ResultsFifty percent of the patients undergoing surgery on the oral, pharyngeal, and laryngeal region and on the neck and salivary gland region had a visual analog scale score higher than 40 mm on day 1. In the patients who underwent oropharyngeal region operations the VAS score remained high on all 4 days. A VAS pain score higher than 40 mm was found in less than 30% of patients after endoscopic procedures and less than 20% after ear and nose surgery. After bivariate analysis, 6 variables--age, sex, preoperative pain, expected pain, short-term fear, and pain catastrophizing--had a predictive value. Multivariate analysis showed only preoperative pain, pain catastrophizing, and anatomical site of operation as independent predictors.ConclusionsDifferences exist in the prevalence of unacceptable postoperative pain between ENT operations performed on different anatomical sites. A limited set of variables can be used to predict the occurrence of unacceptable postoperative pain after ENT surgery.

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