TUCSON, ARIZ. – compared with a standard regimen, with no difference in patient satisfaction scores.
Jim Kling/MDedge News
Dr. Andrey Petrikovets
The new study extends findings from other surgical procedures to pelvic reconstructive surgery.
“This can limit both inpatient and outpatient narcotic use. It uses oral Toradol on an outpatient basis. It’s totally underutilized. People are afraid of it, people think it causes more bleeding, and maybe there’s a cost issue,” Andrey Petrikovets, MD, a urogynecologist in Los Angeles, said in an interview.
The regimen, which he calls ICE-T, relies in part on 16 tablets of Toradol sent home with the patient – 4 days’ worth. “It’s just 16 tablets, so it’s cheap, and patients do great with it. If you really use Toradol appropriately, especially on an outpatient basis, you can pretty much eliminate outpatient narcotic use,” said Dr. Petrikovets, who presented the work at the annual scientific meeting of the Society of Gynecologic Surgeons.
He believes that ICE-T is a good option for vaginal surgery. It’s a possibility for benign laparoscopic and perhaps robotic surgery, although those applications need to be studied. ICE-T should be avoided in patients with chronic pain, as well as patients with contraindications to any of the regimen’s medications, Dr. Petrikovets said.
According to the protocol, until hospital discharge, patients receive 20 minutes of ice to the perineum every 2 hours, 30 mg IV Toradol every 6 hours, 1,000 mg oral Tylenol every 6 hours, and 0.2 mg IV Dilaudid every 3 hours as needed for breakthrough pain. The constant pain management is important, said Dr. Petrikovets. “Patients don’t have an opportunity for the pain to get really high,” he said. At-home management includes 1,000 mg oral Tylenol every 6 hours, as needed (pain level 1-5, 60 tablets), and 10 mg Toradol every 6 hours as needed (pain level 6-10, 16 tablets).
The trial was conducted at two centers, where 63 patients were randomized to ICE-T or a standard regimen, which at the hospital included 600 mg ibuprofen every 6 hours as needed for pain levels 1-3, one tablet of Percocet (5/325 mg) every 4-6 hours as needed for pain levels 4-6, two tablets of Percocet for pain levels 7-10, and 0.2 mg IV Dilaudid every 3 hours as needed for breakthrough pain. At-home management consisted of 600 mg ibuprofen every 6 hours for pain levels 1-5 (60 tablets), and Percocet 5/325 mg every 6 hours for pain levels 6-10 (16 tablets).
Using the visual analog scale, researchers found that the 30 patients in the ICE-T arm of the study had less morning pain (VAS score, 20 mm vs. 40 mm; P = .03), and lower numerical pain score at 96 hours (2 vs. 3; P = .04). During the mornings and at 96 hours, the two groups had similar quality of recovery and satisfaction scores.
Narcotic use, measured as oral morphine equivalents, was significantly lower in the ICE-T arm between exit from the postanesthesia care unit (PACU) and hospital discharge (3 vs. 20; P less than .001) and through PACU all the way to discharge (17 vs. 38; P less than .001); 70% of patients in the ICE-T arm required no narcotics after PACU discharge, compared with 12% in the standard care arm (P less than .001).
At 96 hours, there was no significant difference between the two groups in the number of emergency department visits, percentage who had a bowel movement since surgery, or the number of Percocet/Toradol tablets taken. The ICE-T group took more Tylenol tablets than did the standard group took ibuprofen (11 vs. 6; P = .012).
SOURCE: Petrikovets A et al. SGS 2019, Abstract 07.