Effectiveness of Short-term Use of Gabapentin as Pre-emptive Analgesia in Reducing Pain after Video Assisted Thoracoscopic Surgery

Pain control after thoracoscopy is one of the important issues in patient health care. Pre-emptive analgesia can reduce acute postoperative pain and also prevent chronic pain. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of gabapentin (GABA analog) as pre-emptive analgesia in reducing pain and reducing opiate consumption after video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) surgery.
In this study, 67 patients undergoing thoracoscopic surgery were randomly divided into two groups (31 placeboes and 36 gabapentin). Patients received two capsules (300 mg gabapentin capsules or placebo) on the night before surgery and again one hour before surgery.  After completion of the operation, all patients were transferred to the recovery. Evaluation of postoperative pain was performed using the visual analog scale (VAS) every 30 minutes and then after 2, 4, 6, 10, 24 hours. If patients had pain (VAS above 3), intravenous morphine was injected to relieve pain and the number of injections and the total dose of morphine administered was recorded.
There was no significant difference between the two groups regarding VAS, blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR) and saturated oxygen level (SaO2), urea, creatinine, and adverse effects.
Preoperative gabapentin administration did not affect postoperative pain reduction, but morphine consumption in the gabapentin group was decreased during the first 24 hours after VATS.