Evaluating Patient Controlled Analgesia (PCA) in Children and Adolescents
Despite widespread use of IV Patient Control Analgesia (PCA) for clinical care, especially in the acute pain treatment, little is known about total and daily patterns of opioid consumption, equipotency of the opioids used in PCA in a steady state, and its association with pain scores. The purpose of this analysis is to better understand the opioid consumption in children using a PCA and the relation between opioid use, patient demographics, and pain scores. Expanding our knowledge of the opioid consumption pattern will help us to improve the treatment approach and allow us to design future prospective studies of two types: (1) opioid rescue-sparing trials of test analgesics and (2) trials to test potency ratios of PCA opioids used in different settings here at BCH.
Research Contact: Carolina.DonadoRincon@childrens.harvard.edu
