Papers of the Week

The review aimed to summarize the recent pharmacological and published clinical trials that used oxycodone for pain management after cesarean section (CS). This narrative review is based on published studies in PubMed, EMbase, Web of science, and EBSCO on oxycodone for pain control after CS. Random studies that used oxycodone only or used oxycodone as a major part of a multimodal analgesia regimen were included. Non-English trials, abstract of conference, letters to the editor, animal studies, or studies with insufficient data were excluded. The initial search terms included a combination of free text words and Medical Subject Headings terms. There are 14 clinical trials included and the total number of participants was 1651. These included documents disputed oral oxycodone and patient-controlled intravenous analgesia (PCIA) morphine, compared oral oxycodone and intravenous morphine, investigated sustained-release oral oxycodone and intrathecal morphine, investigated slow release tapentadol and controlled-release oxycodone, investigated ketoprofen, combination of acetaminophen + oxycodone, acetaminophen, and placebo, evaluated oral oxycodone and epidural ropivacaine + sufentanil, evaluated oral oxycodone and PCIA piritramide, evaluated the combination oxycodone + acetaminophen and separately administered oxycodone/acetaminophen, compared the immediate-release oxycodone and controlled-release oxycodone, compared the oral and intravenous oxycodone, disputed PCIA oxycodone or morphine, compared epidural oxycodone and morphine, evaluated PCIA oxycodone, sufentanil or their combination. Oxycodone showed superior or similar postoperative analgesic efficacy compared with other opioids in various administration and reduced the need for rescue medication and side effects. Oxycodone can be successfully used for postoperative analgesia after CS with comparable side effects.