Postoperative pain is a major consequent of lumbar laminectomy. Hence, this study was conducted to determine the efficacy of morphine injection versus sublingual buprenorphine in postoperative pain after lumbar laminectomy in Booali Hospital in 2007-2008.

This study was conducted as a single-blind randomized clinical trial. The patients (in two groups of 25 subjects) were randomly assigned to receive either 0.4 mg of sublingual buprenorphine or 10 mg of intravenous morphine three times. The patients were monitored for postoperative pain in a period of 24 hours after surgery. The data were analyzed through SPSS software version.13 using t-test and chi-square.

Before intervention, VAS was 8±1.04 and 7.72±1.06 in morphine and buprenorphine groups, respectively, a finding which was statistically insignificant (p. Between 12 and 24 hours after intervention, visual analogue scale (VAS) was decreased 2.08±0.95 in morphine group and 3.28±0.67 in buprenorphine group (P=0.0001). 24 hours after intervention, VAS was decreased 2.08±0.9 in morphine group and 2.6±0.95 in buprenorphine group (P=0.055).

Totally, it may be concluded that sublingual buprenorphine may be used as an easy and effective method for pain reduction after lumbar disc surgeries in comparison with intravenous morphine.