Introduction:

There is still a belief that patients do not experience intense pain after intracranial surgery. Sympathetic stimulation associated with pain can lead to elevated intracranial pressure and postoperative haemorrhage. There is controversy about the use of opioids for postoperative analgesia in craniotomies, owing to fear of its side effects, which can mask signs of neurological alteration. There are limited studies in the pediatric patient for post-craniotomy analgesia.

Objective:

To describe the postcraneotomies pain control level, using buprenorphine in partnership with ketorolac and ondansetron in pediatric patients.

Methods:

Descriptive cohort study. For postoperative pain control, patients were given continuous infusion buprenorphine, ketorolac and ondansetron for 30 hours. The main variables to investigate were pain at beginning of infusion, at four, eight, 12, 24 and 30 hours, hemodynamic variables and depth of sedation.

Results:

109 patients were included. Adequate control of pain was observed in 71.56% of patients, whereas in 28.4% insufficient control was found, with a statistically significant difference (p < 0.001). There was moderate sedation in 5.6% of the patients at the start of infusion and at 24 hours (4.5%), without significant impact on hemodynamic variables. Nausea was found in 8.2% and vomiting in 6.64%. No deep sedation, or respiratory depression was presented.

Conclusions:

These findings suggest that is an effective option to treat postcraneotomy pain in pediatric patients.