Pharmacological Interventions in the Treatment of Chronic Postoperative Pain: A Systematic Review

The prevalence of chronic pain after surgery is between 10 to 50 percent; Due to the fact that chronic pain after surgery is still unknown and there are different drug regimens are used for it, and as a result, preventive and curative measures are unknown to physicians, we decided to conduct a review study of chronic postoperative pain management.

This study was a systematic review based on PRISMA steps and clinical trial articles published till the end of 2020 in MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL and Cochrane libraries with the keywords of chronic pain, surgery, pain management.

66 studies were entered with data from 3149 participants in this study; All were clinical trial studies examining the effects of medication on the management of chronic postoperative pain; Drugs used included antidepressants, antiepileptics, capsaicin, epidural injections, neurotoxins, N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor antagonists, and opioids whose effects were evaluated.

Chronic pain after surgery is very unpleasant for every patient and it can lead to various complications for the him/her, so it is important to control and manage the situation with appropriate modality; Different drug regimens have been used to control it, and in studies, methods such as the use of injectable opioids, as well as oral medications such as pregabalin and gabapantin were the most effective treatments.