Arthroscopy : No More Such a Limited Procedure: Reply

Thank you for your comments on the article “Pain relief following Arthroscopy - a comparative study of intra-articular Bupivacaine, Morphine and Neostigmine”. While conducting the study, we have also observed that the pain perception following arthroscopy is variable. The type of surgery, as pointed out in your letter, definitely is pertinent both in the assessment of pain by the patient and the efficacy of the drug given for pain relief. However, the nature of surgery was deliberately omitted while writing the article for statistical reasons. As has been bought out in the article, the duration of surgery in all the groups ranged from 1.1 to 1.3 hours which is statistically insignificant. Surgeries conducted in the centre of study were restricted to diagnostic arthroscopies and minimal therapeutic procedures, all of which could be conducted during this time frame. The cohorts were small, but the pain relief in the different groups were significantly either dense (bupuvacaine alone) or prolonged (neostigmine group). The aim of this study was to demonstrate to our orthopaedic colleagues that different modalities of pain relief are available with the anaesthesiologists and they can call upon them to provide the type of pain relief desired. Definitely, with the increasing range of arthroscopic surgeries being conducted in the Armed Forces, the nature of surgery will have a more significant part to play in the pain perception and the subsequent relief of pain.