Bulletin du cancer
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Anticipating postoperative pain is a routine practice in our institution. As part of a quality assurance program we used our computerized anesthetic record system database to evaluate incidence of patients having very severe postoperative pain (grade 4 on a subjective pain scale ranging from 0 to 4) in the Post Anesthetic Care Unit during a two year period. These patients were compared to a control group matched on age, type and date of surgery. Demographic characteristics, type and duration of the surgery, preoperative and intra-operative medications were compared between groups. ⋯ The incidence of severe postoperative pain scores were less than 1% in our institution. In patients with preoperative opioid treatment, adaptation of analgesic treatment has probably prevented the occurrence of severe pain. Multimodal anticipation of postoperative pain should remain mandatory while efforts should focus to identify such patients before surgery.