surgery

Can Pulmonary Recruitment Maneuver Reduce Pain Intensity?

Pulmonary recruitment maneuver (PRM) significantly reduces pain intensity after bariatric surgery, according to a recent study.

While PRM is known to reduce post-surgery pain among patients who undergo laparascopic gynecologic surgery, little is known about its effect on pain and nausea after bariatric surgery.

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For their study, the researchers included all patients who had undergone elective laparoscopic bariatric surgery at a secondary-level public hospital in Sweden.

Overall, 150 patients were randomly assigned to a control group who had received exsufflation (n = 71) or a group who had received a ventilator-piloted PRM (n = 79) to remove residual carbon dioxide after surgery.

Other factors evaluated were pain and nausea intensities, as well as use of analgesics and antiemetics, at 4, 12, 24, 36, and 48 hours after surgery.

After the first 24 hours after surgery, patients receiving PRM had experienced significantly lower pain intensity and required fewer analgesics than those in the control group. Similarly, patients receiving PRM did not experience an increase in pain over the 24 hours after surgery, unlike those in the control group.

However, PRM did not influence nausea or vomiting incidence or intensity.

“A ventilator-piloted PRM reduced postoperative pain intensity and opioid requirement after laparoscopic bariatric surgery,” the researchers concluded. “The heterogeneity of the study population and the large number of hospital staff involved indicate good generalizability of the results.”

—Amanda Balbi

Reference:

Pasquier EK, Andersson E. Pulmonary recruitment maneuver reduces pain after laparascopic bariatric surgery: a randomized controlled clinical trial. 2018;14(3):386-392. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soard.2017.11.017.