COADMINISTRATION OF INTRAVENOUS REMIFENTANIL AND MORPHINE FOR POSTTHORACOTOMY PAIN; COMPARISON WITH IV MORPHINE ALONE

Methods; Sixty patients were allocated randomly to receive an intravenous patient-controlled analgesia with morphine alone (M), or morphine plus remifentanil (MR), in a double-blind manner. Postoperatively patients were allowed to use bolus doses of morphine (0.2 mg kg-1) or morphine (0.2 mg kg-1) plus remifentanil (0.2 µg kg-1) mixture every 10 min without a background infusion. Pain, discomfort, sedation scores, total and bolus patient-controlled morphine consumption, rescue analgesic requirement and side-effects were recorded for up to 24 h after the start of patient-controlled analgesia.