Comparison of postoperative morphine requirements in healthy living liver donors, patients with hepatocellular carcinoma undergoing partial hepatectomy, and liver transplant recipients

Objective To retrospectively evaluate postoperative morphine requirements in healthy living donors undergoing partial hepatectomy and patients with end-stage hepatocellular carcinoma or end-stage liver disease undergoing liver transplantation. Patients and Methods The study included all patients who received intravenous patient-controlled analgesia after partial hepatectomy or liver transplantation from May 2008 to February 2009. Patients were divided into 3 groups according to type of surgery: group 1, healthy living liver donors undergoing graft procurement; group 2, patients with liver cirrhosis due to chronic hepatitis B virus or hepatitis C virus infection and hepatocellular carcinoma undergoing hepatectomy; and group 3, patients with end-stage liver disease undergoing living-donor liver transplantation. Data including patient age, morphine use, and visual analog scale score on postoperative days (PODs) 1, 2, and 3 were compared between groups using 2-way analysis of variance. P <.05 was considered significant. Values are given as mean (SD). Results Morphine requirement was significantly lower only in group 3 on POD 1. No difference in visual analog scale score between groups was observed postoperatively. Conclusion Although others have reported decreased morphine requirements on PODs 1, 2, and 3, our results indicated that morphine requirements were significantly less only on POD 1.