Management of refractory pain in hospitalized adolescents with sickle cell disease: changing from intravenous opioids to continuous infusion epidural analgesia

Prolonged hospitalizations for sickle cell disease painful episodes are not uncommon, as analgesic options are often suboptimal. Seven patients (15.4 ± 3.7 y, 6 females) were treated with epidural analgesia for refractory pain. The median duration of epidural catheter placement was 4 days (interquar...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of pediatric hematology/oncology Vol. 36; no. 6; p. e398
Main Authors New, Tamara, Venable, Claudia, Fraser, Laura, Rosenberg, Erin, Schmidt, Jennifer, James-Herry, Anne, Osunkwo, Ifeyinwa, Dampier, Carlton
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.08.2014
Subjects
Online AccessGet more information

Cover

Loading…
More Information
Summary:Prolonged hospitalizations for sickle cell disease painful episodes are not uncommon, as analgesic options are often suboptimal. Seven patients (15.4 ± 3.7 y, 6 females) were treated with epidural analgesia for refractory pain. The median duration of epidural catheter placement was 4 days (interquartile range, 3 to 6 d). Mean pain scores changed from 6.8 ± 2.7 to 4.8 ± 2.2, whereas mean daily parenteral opioid requirements changed from 79.7 ± 100.4 to 13.0 ± 13.1 mg of morphine equivalents. Continuous epidural analgesia is an alternative to continuing intravenous opioids in sickle cell disease patients with refractory pain, and may reduce opioid-related side effects and facilitate transition to oral analgesics.
ISSN:1536-3678
DOI:10.1097/MPH.0000000000000026