Sublingual buprenorphine compared to morphine delivered by a patient-controlled analgesia system as postoperative analgesia after prostatectomy.

After open prostatectomy, 52 patients were randomly allocated to two treatment groups. Group A (26 patients) received buprenorphine sublingually, and in group B (26 patients) the analgesia was induced using a patient-controlled analgesia system with morphine. The total dose of morphine given during the first 24 h was 72 +/- 8 mg compared to 1.6 +/- 0.45 mg of buprenorphine. The total dose of buprenorphine on days 2 and 3 was significantly lower than the total dose of morphine (p < 0.01). There were no significant differences in visual pain scores, side effects, mean arterial blood pressure, pulse rate and respiration rate between the two groups. Sublingual application of buprenorphine offers an effective and easy alternative to the parenteral route of morphine for the management of postoperative pain.