In a study to be presented on Feb. 7 at 1:30 p.m. CST, at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting-, in New Orleans, researchers will report findings which suggest remifentanil patient controlled analgesia is not equivalent to epidural analgesia for pain, pain appreciation scores, and overall satisfaction in women who request for pain relief during labor.
Remifentanil patient controlled analgesia (RPCA) is a short-acting pain reliever, an opiate, similar to pethidine. It relieves pain rapidly, but also wears off very quickly, which makes it very suitable for administration through patient controlled analgesia. With RPCA the patient can give herself a dose of remifentanil intravenously every few minutes. Recent studies suggested that RCPA was equal to epidural analgesia (EA) in regards to satisfaction with pain relief, so this study, titled Remifentanil patient controlled analgesia versus epidural analgesia in labor; a randomized controlled equivalence trial set out to compare the effectiveness.
Pain appreciation was measured hourly on a visual analogue scale, and expressed as area under the curve (AUC). The AUC gives a time-weighted measure of total pain appreciation. It was calculated for the duration of labor and for the time that pain relief was administered. A higher AUC for pain appreciation represents higher satisfaction with pain relief.