Update on Patient-Controlled Epidural Analgesia

Since an early description of patient-controlled analgesia (PCEA) for labor pain in 1988, PCEA has become an integral and important analgesic option for postoperative and labor analgesia. There have been a large number of studies evaluating a wide variety of analgesic agents and adjuvants in examining PCEA in many settings. Despite the theoretical advantages of patient-controlled analgesia in general, the superiority of PCEA over continuous epidural infusions or intravenous patient-controlled analgesia (IV PCA) is unclear as are the most optimal analgesic regimens and solutions for PCEA. We summarize the available data examining the analgesic efficacy of PCEA.