ABSTRACT
Acute postoperative pain is a common complaint, estimated to occur in 80% of surgical patients (Apfelbaum et al., 2003), despite current available treatment. Postoperative pain leads to increased morbidity, number of hospital days, and health care costs. The current standard of treatment for postoperative pain is opioid narcotics, which can have undesirable side effects and the potential for addiction and abuse. Additional pain modalities have included pain pumps that deliver local anesthetics to the targeted site. Pain pumps are invasive, require additional procedures for placement and removal, and have varying efcacy (Liu et al., 2006; Kazmier et al., 2008). Furthermore, local anesthetics and opioids have primary analgesic, rather than anti-inammatory effects.
