Opioid-free Anesthesia and Acute Postoperative Pain

Control of intraoperative and postoperative pain with the use of opioids constitutes normal practice. Opioid free anesthesia (OFA) is a relatively recent anesthesiology practice according to which opioids are not administered during surgery and are avoided postoperatively. Opioid free anesthesia seems to provide better quality of postoperative analgesia while protecting the patient from the side effects of opioids such as respiratory depression, postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV), opioid induced hyperalgesia and postoperative cognitive dysfunction. The aim of this study is to investigate the possible difference in the intensity of postoperative pain (based on the numeric rating scale 0-10) and the presence of PONV in patients undergoing transurethral urologic surgery under general anesthesia, when patients receive randomly either opioid free anesthesia (OFA) or opioid based anesthesia (OBA).