Minor burns analgesia. A comparison between opiate based analgesia and non-opiate based analgesia.

Date First Published:

March 1, 2000

Last Updated:

December 4, 2000

Report by:

Krishna Chatterjee, Medical Student (Manchester Royal Infirmary)

Three-Part Question:

In a [patient presenting with painful minor burns] is there [any effective alternative] to [opiate analgesia]?

Clinical Scenario:

A 25 year old male presents at casualty with partial thickness burns to his arm and elbow. The visual analogue scale shows 80mm on the 100mm scale. Do you give opiate analgesia or another method of pain control.

Search Strategy:

Medline 1966-1/7/98 using the OVID interface.

Search Details:

(exp burns ti, ab, sh) AND (exp analgesia ti, ab, sh) LIMIT to human AND English language.

Outcome:

54 papers were found. 5 clinical trials were found from these, 1 could not be obtained, of the remaining 4 trials none were relevant.

Bottom Line:

There was no evidence found to show there is any effective alternative to opiate analgesia. Local advice should be followed.