Dextromethorphan Use in Multimodal Analgesia Regimens for Total Knee Arthroplasty
Status:
Terminated
Trial end date:
2018-01-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is one of the most painful orthopedic procedures. After TKA
surgery, postoperative pain relief may be achieved using a variety of techniques. Integral to
recovery and improved outcomes is early ambulation and mobilization. Achieving adequate
postoperative pain control while ensuring the ability to ambulate early can be quite
challenging.
Currently, in our country there has been a call to address prescription opioid use and abuse
due to a nationwide opioid epidemic. In light of this, improving our multimodal analgesic
protocol will serve to decrease reliance of opioid medications for pain control. Multimodal
analgesia is effective in decreasing total opioid consumption postoperatively.
Dextromethorphan is a low-affinity noncompetitive N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor
antagonist. It has a long history of clinical use with an established safety record. Studies
have shown that it has a positive effect as an analgesic.
In order to see if dextromethorphan will decrease opioid use, this study will look at two
patient groups undergoing total knee arthroplasty with the same preoperative, intraoperative,
and postoperative anesthetic plan with the exception of the addition of dextromethorphan to
one groups multimodal analgesic regimen. This study is designed as a double-blinded,
randomized, prospective cohort trial.