Efficacy and safety of patient-controlled thoracic epidural analgesia alone versus patient-controlled intravenous analgesia with acetaminophen after laparoscopic distal gastrectomy for gastric cancer: a propensity score-matched analysis

Background Laparoscopic gastrectomy is a common procedure for early gastric cancer treatment. Improving postoperative pain control enhances patient recovery after surgery. The use of multimodal analgesia can potentially enhance the analgesic effect, minimize side effects, and change the postoperative management. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare the efficacies of the use of patient-controlled intravenous analgesia with regular acetaminophen (PCIA + Ace) and patient-controlled thoracic epidural analgesia (PCEA) for postoperative pain control. Methods We retrospectively collected the data of 226 patients who underwent laparoscopic distal gastrectomy (LDG) with delta-shaped anastomosis between 2016 and 2019. After 1:1 propensity-score matching, we compared 83 patients who used PCEA alone (PCEA group) with 83 patients who used PCIA + Ace (PCIA + Ace group). Postoperative pain was assessed using a numeric rating scale (NRS) with scores ranging from 0 to 10. An NRS score >= 4 was considered the threshold for additional intravenous rescue medication administration. Results Although NRS scores at rest were comparable between the PCEA and PCIA + Ace groups, NRS scores of patients in the PCIA + Ace group during coughing or movement were significantly better than those of patients in the PCEA group on postoperative days 2 and 3. The frequency of additional rescue analgesic use was significantly lower in the PCIA + Ace group than in the PCEA group (1.1 vs. 2.7, respectively, p < 0.001). The rate of reduction or interruption of the patient-controlled analgesic dose was higher in the PCEA group than in the PCIA + Ace group (74.6% vs. 95.1%, respectively, p = 0.0002), mainly due to hypotension occurrence in the PCEA group. Physical recovery time, postoperative complication occurrence, and liver enzyme elevation incidence were not significantly different between groups. Conclusions PCIA + Ace can be safely applied without an increase in complications or deterioration in gastrointestinal function; moreover, PCIA + Ace use may provide better pain control than PCEA use in patients following LDG.