[Myth of Intraoperative Pain: Reconsidering the Role of Opioids in General Anesthesia].

Source: PubMed, NCBI / U.S. National Library of Medicine

During general anesthesia, patients cannot experience pain - only nociception. Opioids do not serve as intraoperative analgesics; their role is to blunt autonomic stress responses and reduce the requirements for other anesthetic agents. The concept of balanced anesthesia was developed to minimize the side effects of mono-anesthesia, not to treat intraoperative pain. Opioid-free and opioid-sparing strategies confirm that intraoperative opioids are effective but not indispensable. Framing their use as pain relief is a persistent myth that may promote harmful overprescribing.