RESEARCH ARTICLE
Post-Operative Pain After Knee Arthroscopy and Related Factors
G.I Drosos*, 1, N.I Stavropoulos2, A Katsis3, K Kesidis4, K Kazakos1, D.-A Verettas1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2008Volume: 2
First Page: 110
Last Page: 114
Publisher ID: TOORTHJ-2-110
DOI: 10.2174/1874325000802010110
Article History:
Received Date: 28/4/2008Revision Received Date: 06/5/2008
Acceptance Date: 03/6/2008
Electronic publication date: 13/6/2008
Collection year: 2008
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/), which permits unrestrictive use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
The aim of this study was to explore the intensity of post-arthroscopy knee pain during the first 24 hours, and to study the influence of pre-operative pain, tourniquet time and amount of surgical trauma on post-arthroscopy pain. In 78 male patients that underwent elective arthroscopic menisectomy or diagnostic arthroscopy of the knee, preoperative and post-operative pain were registered using the Visual Analogue Scale. Variance for repeated measures and for independent observations was analysed. Supplementary analgesia was required for 23% of the patients, more often in the recovery room and between 2 and 8 hours postoperatively. Of all factors analyzed, only time was statistically significant in determining the level of post-operative pain. Supplementary analgesia was required only in patients that underwent operative arthroscopy, and more often in patients with tourniquet time of more than 40 minutes. In conclusions, post-operative time is the most significant factor related to the post-arthroscopy knee pain.