Comparison of postarthroscopic knee analgesia with intra-articularly different low-dose analgesics

Objective To evaluate the analgesic effect of different low-dose intra-articular analgesics after knee arthroscopy. Methods Seventy-five patients with ASA physical statusⅠtoⅡ, undergoing knee arthroscopy,were randomly divided into 5 groups equally. All patients received continuous epidural anesthesia. At the end of surgery, the following drugs were injected intra-articularly through the arthroscope: normal saline group;morphine(1 mg) group in saline; tramadol(10 mg) group in saline; ketamine (10 mg) group in saline;lomoxican(5 mg) group in saline. Visual analogue scale(VAS) immediately after the patient actively flexed the operated knee to 90 degree at postoperation of 2,4,8,12,24 h and the side effects were recorded. Results At 2 and 24 h there were no statistical difference in VAS among the groups (P0.05). At 4,8 and 12 h VAS were significantly lower in the groups of morphine, tramadol,ketamine and lornoxican than that in control group(P0.05 or P0.01) ,but there were no statistical difference in VAS among the groups of morphine, tramadol, ketamine and lornoxican (P 0.05). One patient in groups of normal saline and morphine respectively had temporal urinary retention,no other adverse effects were noted. Conclusion Different low-dose intra-articular analgesics can effectively relieve the pain after arthroscopic knee surgery.