Postoperative pain management: Comparison of intravenous paracetamol versus ketorolac

TL;DR

This study compares intravenous paracetamol and ketorolac for postoperative pain management, finding ketorolac more effective.

Contribution

The study provides empirical evidence that intravenous ketorolac is more effective than paracetamol for postoperative pain.

Findings

Ketorolac produced significantly lower pain scores than paracetamol.

Ketorolac reduced the need for rescue analgesia compared to paracetamol.

Abstract

Effective control of postoperative pain remains a key challenge in perioperative care, necessitating comparison of commonly used
analgesic agents. Therefore, it is of interest to compare the analgesic efficacy of intravenous paracetamol and intravenous ketorolac
in 60 patients undergoing elective surgery. Patients received either paracetamol 1 g or ketorolac 30 mg intravenously, and pain intensity
was assessed using the Visual Analogue Scale with documentation of rescue analgesic use. Ketorolac produced significantly lower pain scores
and reduced need for rescue analgesia compared with paracetamol (p < 0.05). Thus, we show that intravenous ketorolac provides superior
postoperative analgesia within a multimodal pain management strategy.