The drug pregabalin, administered before and after knee replacement surgery, significantly decreased patient pain while increasing and expediting mobility after surgery, according to a new study.
Total knee replacement (TKR) is one of the most prevalent and painful orthopedic surgical procedures. With an increasing aging population, the number of knee replacements performed in the United States increased by 69 percent from 1997 to 2005, with an estimated 314,000 TKR procedures expected to be done each year in the United States by 2010. While extremely successful in ultimately ending or minimizing knee pain and disability, the procedure can result in postoperative knee stiffness, mechanical failure, and severe, chronic pain.
Asokumar Buvanendran, M.D., director of orthopedic anesthesia and associate professor of anesthesiology, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, conducted the study with 60 TKR patients in two groups. One group received 300 milligrams of pregabalin (an anti-convulsant) two hours before surgery and 150 milligrams twice a day for 14 days following surgery. The other patients were given placebos at the same intervals. Both groups received pain medication through an epidural catheter during surgery and after surgery through a patient-controlled device.
The study found a “significant decrease” between the pregabalin and placebo groups in pain medication consumption in the 32 hours following surgery at all time points. The pregabalin group also consistently reported pain levels between 2 and 4 (on a scale of 1 to 10, with “10” being most severe) following surgery.