In pain-relief test, the patch fares as well as the pump

Pain patches may be as good as intravenously pumped medications in relieving pain after an operation.

Researchers from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia studied 636 surgical patients at 33 North American hospitals between September 2000 and March 2001; most were women who had undergone gynecologic or orthopedic procedures.

Half were randomly assigned to get morphine through an IV pump. The rest received transdermal fentanyl, a powerful narcotic delivered through a credit card-sized adhesive patch. The medication is absorbed into the circulatory system and then carried into the nervous system.

With both devices, the patient controls the timing of the doses, but the patch doesn’t require needles, tubing or a pump.

For the first 24 hours after their operations, both groups were equally able to control their pain.

Among those patients who continued using the treatments for 48 to 72 hours, more than 80% in each group rated their pain control as good to excellent.

The study appeared in the March 17 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

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Jane E. Allen