Effect of Intravenous Morphine and Ketorolac on Pain Control in Long Bones Fractures

According to the lack of adequate studies on comparing the analgesic effect and complications of ketorolac with morphine in long bone fractures, this study aimed to compare the effi cacy of ketorolac with morphine in patients referring to the Emergency Department with long bones damage and fracture.

In this clinical trial study, 88 patients with long bone fracture were selected randomly and divided into two groups. To scale the intensity of pain, visual analog scale (VAS) were used. Intravenous ketorolac and morphine with the loading dose of 10 mg and 5 mg, respectively was administered to a group, followed by 5 mg and 2.5 mg every 5–20 min, if necessary (VAS ≥4). The pain scores before injection and at 5 min, half an hour and 1-h after the injection were measured and recorded for all patients.

The mean age of the ketorolac and morphine groups was 29.1 ± 12.5 and 33.2 ± 11.4, respectively. In the groups, there was 63.6% and 70.5% of male patients respectively. The mean ± SD of pain score before the injection was 7.59 ± 1 and 7.93 ± 1.09 (P = 0.13). One hour after the injection, the mean ± SD of pain in the both groups was 1.41 ± 0.9 and 1.61 ± 1.17 and the mean pain score has no signifi cant difference in the two groups before the injection. Repeated measures ANOVA test also showed that the trend of changes in pain score had no signifi cant difference in both groups (P = 0.08).

According to the fewer side effects of ketorolac and effective pain release versus morphine, ketorolac could be suggested to use.