Efficacy of modified auriculotherapy for post-operative pain control in patients subjected to laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background The high frequency of post-operative pain in the patients after laparoscopic cholecystectomy has led to the need to use multiple analgesic therapies. These include auriculotherapy, although not very good results have been obtained with the traditional techniques. Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of modified auriculotherapy for post-operative pain control in laparoscopic cholecystectomy patients. Material and methods Double-blind controlled clinical trial. Experimental group: Different points ear puncture with xylocaine without needles vs. placebo group. Post-operative visual analogue scale (VAS) at 6, 12, 18, 24, 36, and 48 h and rescue doses of analgesics, were measured in both groups. Results At 6 h post-operative, 87% of the auriculotherapy group had a VAS of < 4 vs. 48% of placebo group (p = 0.004), and 96 vs. 74% (p = 0.008) at 18 hours. At 24, 36 and 48 h after surgery there were no differences, and as all of the patients in both groups had a VAS < 4, they were discharged to the hospital. Conclusions Modified auriculotherapy was better to the conventional analgesics for post-operative pain control in patients subjected to laparoscopic cholecystectomy.