Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction (ACLR) is a common orthopedic procedure that is accompanied by moderate to severe postoperative pain and is primarily performed on an outpatient basis.
Many different pain control treatments are used in the management of patients after ACLR, including various permutations of nerve blocks, nerve block adjuncts (NBAs), intra-articular injections, intravenous (IV), oral medications, and cryotherapy, as well as compression stockings. Despite this, no gold-standard postoperative analgesia guideline has emerged. Melatonin (N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine) is a naturally-occurring hormone in the human body and offers antiemetic, analgesic, and anxiolytic effects
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
QUADRUPLE
Enrollment
50
Patients will receive oral melatonin 10 mg (two 5 mg tablets) one hour before the operation plus intra-articular analgesia at the end of surgery.
Patients will receive two oral inert starch tablets of the same shape and color one hour before the operation plus intra-articular analgesia at the end of surgery.
Time to first analgesic requirement
Assessed in minutes
Time frame: 24 hours after surgery
Postoperative pain intensity
Assessed by the visual analogue scale, an 11-point scale graded from 0 to 10 (0 = no pain, 10 = the worst imaginable pain)
Time frame: 24 hours after surgery
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