Perioperative analgesia

Abstract

Dedicated pain services in many hospitals have improved postoperative pain management and increased the safety and efficacy of analgesia. Modern techniques follow concepts of pre-emptive analgesia (providing analgesia throughout the perioperative period to prevent long-term consequences), multimodal analgesia (balanced combination of analgesics with different modes of action) and perioperative rehabilitation. Newer drugs such as parecoxib, tramadol and enantiomer-specific local anaesthetics have increased the options for perioperative analgesia.