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Evidence summaries

Single Dose Oral Indometacin for Acute Postoperative Pain

There is insufficient evidence to assess the benefits and harms of a single dose of orally administered indometacin for postoperative pain relief. Level of evidence: "D"

A Cochrane review [Abstract] 1 included one study on the efficacy of a single dose of oral indometacin in treating acute postoperative pain in adults, with a total of 59 subjects. Twenty-seven potential papers were identified, but only one small study of women with post-episiotomy pain met the inclusion criteria.

The dose of indometacin assessed against placebo was 50 mg. The number of patients with at least 50% pain relief at 6 hours was 20 out of 29 (69%) for indometacin and 16 out of 30 (53%) for placebo; i.e., there was no significant difference between treatment and placebo (RR 1.3, 95% confidence interval 0.85 to 1.96).

    References

    • Mason L, Edwards J, Moore RA, McQuay HJ. Single dose oral indometacin for the treatment of acute postoperative pain. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2004 Oct 18;(4):CD004308. [PubMed]

Primary/Secondary Keywords