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Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation for Pain Relief After Liposuction: A Randomized Controlled Trial

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Abstract

Background

Liposuction is a common cosmetic surgical procedure, which requires analgesia for postoperative pain. Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) has been used for postoperative pain relief; however, there is no evidence of its effectiveness in liposuction patients and this is the focus of this paper.

Methods

A prospective, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial was conducted with 42 adult patients who underwent liposuction. Patients were randomly allocated to either the TENS group (active TENS) or control group (sham TENS). All patients received morphine (0.1 mg/kg) and dipyrone 1 g immediately after surgery; TENS was delivered 2 h later. The primary outcome was pain intensity. Secondary outcomes were analgesic requirement, number and types of adverse effects of TENS, quality of pain, treatment success, and patient satisfaction. Postoperative pain was measured using a visual analog scale (VAS) and the Brazilian version of the McGill Pain Questionnaire (Br-MPQ).

Results

Patients in the TENS group reported significantly lower pain intensity (P < 0.001, effect size = 0.92) compared with those in the control group. TENS significantly decreased the consumption of analgesics in the postoperative period (P < 0.001). No withdrawals or adverse effects were observed in the TENS group, but 33.3 % of patients in the control group reported drowsiness and nausea. About 95 and 38 % of patients in the TENS and control groups, respectively, were satisfied with the analgesic treatment.

Conclusion

The results indicate that TENS is effective as an adjunct to analgesics for pain relief after liposuction.

Level of Evidence I

This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266.

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Compliance with Ethical Requirements

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate Program in Translational Surgery, Division of Plastic Surgery, Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP), Rua Napoleão de Barros 715, 4o. andar, CEP 04024-002, São Paulo, Brazil

    Milla Pompilio da Silva

  2. Physical Therapy Department, University of the City of São Paulo (UNICID), São Paulo, Brazil

    Richard Eloin Liebano

  3. Federal University of São Paulo School of Medicine (EPM-UNIFESP), São Paulo, Brazil

    Victor Ales Rodrigues

  4. Graduate Program in Translational Surgery, Division of Plastic Surgery, Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP), São Paulo, Brazil

    Luiz Eduardo Felipe Abla & Lydia Masako Ferreira

Authors
  1. Milla Pompilio da Silva
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  2. Richard Eloin Liebano
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  3. Victor Ales Rodrigues
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  4. Luiz Eduardo Felipe Abla
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  5. Lydia Masako Ferreira
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Milla Pompilio da Silva.

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da Silva, M.P., Liebano, R.E., Rodrigues, V.A. et al. Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation for Pain Relief After Liposuction: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Aesth Plast Surg 39, 262–269 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00266-015-0451-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00266-015-0451-6

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