Bowel function recovery after radical hysterectomies: thoracic epidural bupivacaine-morphine versus intravenous patient-controlled analgesia with morphine: a pilot study.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To determine if the use of continuous epidural bupivacaine-morphine in the perioperative period is associated with a significant decrease in the recovery time of postoperative ileus when compared with parenteral morphine administration.

DESIGN: Prospective (quality of analgesia) and retrospective (bowel function recovery), nonrandomized study.

SETTING: Inpatient gynecology-oncology patients at a university-affiliated tertiary cancer center hospital.

PATIENTS: 68 women who experienced uncomplicated radical hysterectomies for cancer.

INTERVENTIONS: Intraoperative epidural-general anesthesia or general anesthesia only was administered. Postoperative continuous epidural analgesia with bupivacaine-morphine and intravenous (IV) morphine via patient-controlled analgesia (PCA). Both forms of therapy were titrated to provide patients with a dynamic visual analog pain score of 5 or less on a 10-point scale throughout the study period. Patients were weaned from infusions when pain scores remained at less than 5 for 12 hours and no breakthrough medication was used.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Rest and dynamic pain scores, time of first flatus, length of nasogastric therapy, time to solid food intake, daily and total morphine requirements and length of hospitalization were recorded. The epidural group required fewer days of nasogastric therapy (4 +/- 3 versus 8 +/- 2 days, p = 0,0001), tolerated solid foods sooner (6 +/- 2 versus 11 +/- 3 days, p < 0.0001), and had a shorter hospitalization time (10 +/- 3 versus 14 +/- 4 days, p = 0.0001) when compared with the PCA group.

CONCLUSIONS: The use of thoracic epidural bupivacaine-morphine results in a decrease in the duration of postoperative ileus, which was associated with earlier hospital discharge.