Efficacy and Safety of Sufentanil Infusion for Postoperative Analgesia in Cancer Surgery: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Background Opioids have long been the cornerstone of drugs used for perioperative analgesia. Sufentanil has an advantageous pharmacological profile for its use in continuous intravenous (IV) infusion, yet remains poorly described. Our institution has implemented analgesia protocols with IV sufentanil infusions for cancer surgery with appropriate monitoring. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of IV sufentanil infusion. Methods A single-center retrospective cohort study was conducted through the analysis of patients' records and the acute pain service database. Inclusion criteria were adult patients admitted for elective cancer surgery and with postoperative IV sufentanil infusion during one year period. Descriptive and inferential statistical analysis was performed by using Software SPSS Statistics (IBM Corp., Armonk USA): Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney, Chi-square and Fisher tests; Bonferroni chi-square residual analysis, binary logistic regression; p