Efficacy of wound infiltration with lornoxicam for postoperative analgesia following thyroidectomy: a prospective, randomized, double-blind study

Postoperative pain control constitutes a major problem and studies have focused on reducing opioid requirements using regional techniques. We aimed to investigate the efficacy of wound infiltration with lornoxicam on postoperative pain control following thyroidectomy. In this prospective, randomized-controlled study, 80 patients scheduled for thyroidectomy were randomly assigned to 2 groups. After the thyroidectomy was performed, patients in group I underwent wound infiltration with 4 mg of lornoxicam and patients in group II received the same amount of saline. Rescue analgesia was provided with additional doses oflornoxicam delivered by an on-demand patient-controlled analgesia device. Total analgesic consumption during the postoperative 24 h, and pain intensities assessed using a visual analog scale score at 0, 2, 4, 8, 12 and 24 h postoperatively were recorded. Pain scores during the postoperative 24 h were slightly lower in group I than in group II, but the difference was not significant (P > 0.05). The mean analgesic consumption was 8.87 ± 1.87 mg and 10.33 ± 1.25 mg in groups I and II, respectively (P > 0.05). Wound infiltration with lornoxicam neither improved postoperative pain control nor decreased total analgesic consumption.