Pain Releif Effect of Intravenous Acetaminophen and Pethidine in Maxillofacial Surgery

Abstract

Introduction: In a double-blind randomized-controlled trial we wanted to assess the efficacy of intravenous acetaminophen in controlling early postoperative pain in maxillofacial inpatient operations compared to routinely administered opioids. Methods: We studied 52 consecutive patients. All patients had an operation on their mandible. The patients were randomly divided into two groups by simple randomization. Postoperative pain was measured by visual analogue score (VAS) 1, 2, 4, 8, 12 and 24 hours after the operation. The first group (26 patients) received postoperative pethidine 1 mg per kg every 4 hours while the second group (26 patients) received postoperative acetaminophen 15 mg per kg every 6 hours. Results: There was not any significant difference between age and sex ratio in two study groups (p > 0.05). There was not any significant difference between pain scores of two groups at postoperative time intervals (p > 0.05). Repeated-measure ANOVA test revealed that the decline of pain was observed in both groups and the trend of decline had no significant difference between two groups (p > 0.05). Conclusion: In conclusion, we found that intravenous acetaminophen is equal to routine opioid administration in controlling acute pain after maxillofacial surgeries