Comparative study between effect of preoperative multimodal analgesia and pregabalin as unimodal analgesia in reduction of postoperative opioids consumption and postoperative pain in laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is a popular abdominal surgery and the most common problem for patients undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy is the postoperative pain, and associated side effects due to opioids use for pain management and multimodal analgesia is suggested to reduce postoperative pain and need for postoperative opioids. This controlled clinical trial compares the effects of multimodal analgesia and pregabalin as unimodal analgesia on postoperative pain management, postoperative opioids consumption, and reduction of opioids accompanied adverse effects in patients undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy where large multicenter studies evaluating specific analgesic combinations are lacking. Method This comparison randomized controlled trial between multimodal analgesia approach and pregabalin as unimodal analgesia included 95 laparoscopic cholecystectomy patients that were randomly allocated to three groups using a simple randomization method where multimodal and pregabalin groups included 30 patients in each and the drugs was administered orally one hour before the incision and control group included 35 patients that did not receive any preoperative analgesia. Multimodal analgesic therapy included acetaminophen 1 g, pregabalin 150 mg and celecoxib 400 mg while pregabalin group received pregabalin 150 mg only. Results Multimodal group showed a significantly lower need for total opioid analgesics mean ± SD (1.33 ± 1.918) as compared to the control group mean ± SD (3.31 ± 2.784) with p-value 0.014. Pregabalin and multimodal groups showed significantly lower postoperative visual analogue scale used for pain assessment mean ± SD (3.50 ± 2.543) and mean ± SD (3.70 ± 2.231), respectively, compared to the control group mean ± SD (5.89 ± 2.857) with p-value 0.001. Conclusion Multimodal analgesia reduced postoperative opioids consumption more than pregabalin alone when used preoperatively in laparoscopic cholecystectomy and consequently reduced opioids associated adverse effects, but they have the same efficacy in reducing postoperative pain, so pregabalin can be used alone preoperatively in patients with contraindications for using some analgesics included in multimodal analgesia protocol. The study was registered retrospectively in clinical trials; Trial registration ID: NCT05547659.