Injected morphine in postoperative pain: a quantitative systematic review Henry J. McQuay, DM, Clinical Reader in Pain Relief Dawn Carroll, BA Hons, Research Sister R. Andrew Moore, DSc, Consultant Biochemist Pain Research & Nuffield Department of Anaesthetics, University of Oxford, Oxford Radcliffe Hospital, The Churchill, Headington, Oxford OX3 7LJ UK This study was supported by grants from the NHS R&D Health Technology Evaluation programmes, European Union Biomed 2, and Pain Research Funds. Correspondence to Dr H J McQuay, Pain Research Tel: +44 1865 226161 Fax: +44 1865 226160 email:
[email protected] Abstract This systematic review of single dose placebo randomised controlled trials assessed pain relief from subcutaneous, intramuscular or intravenous morphine compared with placebo in postoperative pain. Pain relief or pain intensity difference over four to six 1 hours was extracted and converted into the number of patients with at least 50% pain relief. This was used to calculate the relative benefit and the number-needed-to-treat (NNT) for one patient to achieve at least 50% pain relief. In 15 trials comparing intra- muscular morphine 10 mg (486 patients) with placebo (460 patients) morphine had an NNT of 2.9 (95% confidence interval 2.6 - 3.6). This meant that one of every three pa- tients with moderate or severe postoperative pain treated with 10 mg intramuscular morphine had at least 50% pain relief, who would not have done had they been given placebo. Minor adverse effects were more common with morphine (34%) than with placebo (23%) (relative risk 1.49 (1.09 - 2.04)), but drug-related study withdrawal was rare (1.2% overall) and no different from placebo.