Effect of oral gabapentin on postoperative epidural analgesia

Gabapentin has been used successfully as a non-opioid analgesic adjuvant for postoperative pain management. We hypothesized that gabapentin might be a useful adjuvant for postoperative analgesia provided with patient-controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA). Forty patients undergoing lower extremity surgery procedures were randomly assigned to receive (i) placebo capsules (control) or (ii) gabapentin (1.2 g day−1) before and for 2 days after surgery. Anaesthetic technique was standardized. Postoperative assessments included verbal rating scale scoring for pain and sedation, PCEA usage, quality of recovery assessment, times of GI function recovery, and patient satisfaction scoring for pain management. Pain scores at 1, 4, 8, 12, and 16 h (P