Challenges in acute postoperative pain management in thoracic surgery

Effective pain control is crucial in the management of thoracic surgical patients since it reduces postoperative morbidity and promotes recovery. These patients have co-existing respiratory diseases and impaired pulmonary function, which may be further impaired by surgery. With the adoption of minimally invasive surgical techniques and an emphasis on enhancing recovery after surgery, multimodal analgesia has gained popularity as a way to reduce perioperative opioid use and its associated adverse events such as respiratory depression. The literature related to opioid-sparing analgesia in thoracic surgery is still evolving. This review summarizes the latest research related to the use of various intravenous, oral, and perineural pharmacological agents as a part of multimodal analgesic regimen for pain relief in patients undergoing thoracic surgery and provides a summary for their application in clinical practice.