Remifentanil and Hyperalgesia: Gradual Withdrawal Versus Immediate Discontinuation

• Status: Completed
• Trial end date: 2017-08-30
• Target enrollment: 0
• Participant gender: All

Summary

Modern anesthesia has made a lot of progress, however, postoperative pain remains one of the major problems associated with patient discomfort, prolonged hospital stay and increased health care costs.

Remifentanil is an ultra-short-acting phenylpiperidine opioid analgesic with high lipid solubility and a rapid onset of effect.

Recently, opioid use has also been associated with postoperative opioid-induced hyperalgesia or acute opioid tolerance. An immediate discontinuation of remifentanil has been associated to increased postoperative pain levels.

We would like to investigate whether a gradual post-operative withdrawal of remifentanil is indeed associated with less immediate pain compared to after an abrupt withdrawal in surgical patients undergoing minor surgery.

• Phase: N/A
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers?: No

Details

• Lead Sponsor: Université Libre de Bruxelles
• Treatments: Remifentanil

Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• All patients undergoing a thyroid surgery

• male/female

• from the age of 18 until 65

• ASA physical status of I-III

• Knowledge of French, English or Dutch is required in order to be enrolled in this study.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Pregnancy

• hypo-/hyperthyroidism

• gastro-duodenal ulcer

• allergy or contraindications to one of the study drugs

• renal insufficiency

• liver insufficiency

• neuropsychiatric disturbance

• BMI >30

• history of drug and alcohol abuse

• preoperative analgesic drug use