Clinical Trial of Gabapentin to Decrease Postoperative Delirium and Pain

Summary

This will be a double blind, placebo-controlled study of patients ≥65 years of age undergoing surgery of the spine, hips and knees replacement at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center. Intraoperative anesthetic and postoperative pain management will be standardized. Patients will be randomized to receive either placebo or gabapentin preoperatively, and continued postoperatively until discharge. Intraoperative anesthetic and other postoperative pain management strategies will be standardized. Postoperative delirium will be measured using structured interviews. Cognitive function will be measured using a battery of neurocognitive tests pre- and post-operatively. Using an intention to treat strategy, we, the researchers at UCSF, will compare the incidence of postoperative delirium and cognitive dysfunction, the amount of postoperative pain, and narcotic requirements between the two groups. The primary outcome will be postoperative delirium. Secondary outcomes will be postoperative pain and opioids use, and length of hospital stay, and cognitive dysfunction.

Timeline

Start

2006-01

Primary completion

2014-01

Completion

2014-07

Publications

• Background Leung JM, Sands LP, Chen N, Ames C, Berven S, Bozic K, Burch S, Chou D, Covinsky K, Deviren V, Kinjo S, Kramer JH, Ries M, Tay B, Vail T, Weinstein P, Chang S, Meckler G, Newman S, Tsai T, Voss V, Youngblom E; Perioperative Medicine Research Group. Perioperative Gabapentin Does Not Reduce Postoperative Delirium in Older Surgical Patients: A Randomized Clinical Trial. Anesthesiology. 2017 Oct;127(4):633-644. doi: 10.1097/ALN.0000000000001804.
• Results Leung JM, Sands LP, Rico M, Petersen KL, Rowbotham MC, Dahl JB, Ames C, Chou D, Weinstein P. Pilot clinical trial of gabapentin to decrease postoperative delirium in older patients. Neurology. 2006 Oct 10;67(7):1251-3. doi: 10.1212/01.wnl.0000233831.87781.a9. Epub 2006 Aug 16.

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Indications