Effect of Intrathecal Morphine and Epidural Analgesia on Postoperative Recovery After Abdominal Surgery for Gynecologic Malignancy: an Open-label Randomised Trial

Objectives: We aimed to determine whether regional analgesia with intrathecal morphine (ITM) in an enhanced recovery programme (enhanced recovery after surgery [ERAS]) gives a shorter hospital stay with good pain relief and equal health-related quality of life (QoL) to epidural analgesia (EDA) in women after midline laparotomy for proven or assumed gynaecological malignancies.

Design: An open-label, randomised, single-centre study.

Setting: A tertiary referral Swedish university hospital.

Participants: Eighty women, 18-70 years of age, American Society of Anesthesiologists I and II, admitted consecutively to the department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

Interventions: The women were allocated (1:1) to either the standard analgesic method at the clinic (EDA) or the experimental treatment (ITM). An ERAS protocol with standardised perioperative routines and standardised general anaesthesia were applied. The EDA or ITM started immediately preoperatively. The ITM group received morphine, clonidine and bupivacaine intrathecally; the EDA group had an epidural infusion of bupivacaine, adrenalin and fentanyl.

Primary And Secondary Outcome Measures: Primary endpoint was length of hospital stay (LOS). Secondary endpoints were QoL and pain assessments.

Results: LOS was statistically significantly shorter for the ITM group compared with the EDA group (median [IQR]3.3 [1.5-56.3] vs 4.3 [2.2-43.2] days; p=0.01). No differences were observed in pain assessment or QoL. The ITM group used postoperatively the first week significantly less opioids than the EDA group (median (IQR) 20 mg (14-35 mg) vs 81 mg (67-101 mg); p<0.0001). No serious adverse events were attributed to ITM or EDA.

Conclusions: Compared with EDA, ITM is simpler to administer and manage, is associated with shorter hospital stay and reduces opioid consumption postoperatively with an equally good QoL. ITM is effective as postoperative analgesia in gynaecological cancer surgery.

Trial Registration Number: NCT02026687; Results.