A Comparison of the Efficacy of Intra-Articular Injection of Morphine with Marcaine in Patients to Relief the Pain Associated with Knee arthroscopy

Background and Knee arthroscopy is an approved technique for the diagnosis and treatment of intra-articular lesions. Moderate to severe pain is experienced after surgery thus, relieving pain post arthroscopy, will help patients in performing their daily activities as soon as possible. Many studies have been performed for reducing pain after arthroscopy. The aim of this study is to compare the efficacy of intra-articular injection of morphine with marcaine in patients for pain relief after arthroscopy. 30 patients were considered for arthroscopic surgery, due to the tearing of the menisci. In this simple non-probability trial, patients were divided in two groups. The first group received 7cc intra-articular marcaine at 0.5% and the second group received 10mg of intra-articular morphine after the arthroscopy. The response was measured by VAS in hours 6, 12, 18, 24 postoperatively and by flexion, extension and walking. The results showed that there was no significant statistical difference between the two groups, except in hour 6 after surgery, indicating marcaine is more effective than morphine. There were no side effects experienced within the two groups. Age, gender, height and weight also had no effect in reducing the pain in patients. Intra-articular Injection of marcaine is more effective than morphine six hours after surgery however, there are no differences between them after that time frame. More research is needed in order to reduce pain after arthroscopy.