| Summary: | <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Post-thymectomy pain in myasthenia gravis (MG) patients can inhibit breathing and coughing. Inappropriate usage of analgesics may exacerbate respiratory inhibition and even cause myasthenic crisis. Flurbiprofen is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) that is commonly used to control moderate postoperative pain and is not associated with respiratory inhibition. We hypothesized that flurbiprofen may provide post-thymectomy pain relief without increasing the risk of complications in MG patients.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Two hundred MG patients underwent extended thymectomy from March 2006 to December 2010 and were randomly allocated to a flurbiprofen group (110 patients, 50 mg intravenous flurbiprofen axetil) or a control group (90 patients, 100 mg intramuscular tramadol) as postoperative analgesia. Visual analog scale (VAS) pain score, heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, pulse oximetry (SpO<sub>2</sub>), and adverse effects were recorded before and up to 24 h after drug administration.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There were no significant differences in the preoperative clinical characteristics of the flurbiprofen and control (tramadol) groups. Both flurbiprofen and tramadol significantly alleviated post-thymectomy pain (<it>p</it> < 0.05 for both), but patients in flurbiprofen group had significantly lower VAS pain scores at 0.5 h, 2 h, 4 h, and 8 h after surgery (<it>p</it> < 0.05 for all times). There were no significant post-thymectomy changes of heart rate, respiratory rate, mean arterial blood pressure, or SpO<sub>2</sub> in either group at all time points.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Post-thymectomy intravenous administration of flurbiprofen axetil provides safe and effective analgesia for MG patients.</p>
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