Table 3.

Prospective studies evaluating epidural effect on preventing phantom limb pain

Study	Number of patients	Treatments	Randomizationa	Blindinga	Preoperativeb	Hours preoperative	Intraoperativeb	Postoperativeb	Effectc
Bach et al124	25	1. Epidural bupivacaine, morphine 2. Opiods, paracetamol, dextropropoxiphen, acetylsalicylic acid	−	−	+	72	+	−	+
Jahangiri etal125	24	1. Perioperative epidural bupivacaine, Clonidine, diamorphine 2. On-demand opioids	−	−	+	>24	+	+	+
Schug et al132	23	1. Perioperative epidural bupivacaine, fentanyl 2. Intraoperative epidural bupivacaine, fentanyl	−	−	+	2c	+	+	+
Katsuly-Liapis 1996148	45	Not described	+	Not described	+		+	+	+
Nikolajsen et al126	60	1. Epidural bupivacaine, morphine 2. Epidural saline and oral or IM morphine	+	+	+	18	+	+	−
Lambert et al133	30	1. Epidural bupivacaine and diamorphine 2. Perineural bupivacaine	+		+	24	+	+	No difference between epidural and perineural groups
Wilson et al134	53	1. Epidural ketamine/bupivacaine 2. Epidural bupivacaine	+	+		0	+	+	No difference between epidural groups
Karanikolas et al135	65	1. Epidural anesthesia and analgesia 2. Preoperative IV PCA, postoperative epidural analgesia and anesthesia 3. Perioperative IV PCA and epidural anesthesia 4. Perioperative IV PCA and general anesthesia 5. Conventional analgesia and anesthesia	+	+	+	48	+	+	+

Notes:^aRandomization and blinding of study participants and investigators was either employed “+” as a method in the study or not employed “–”;

^b“+” refers to when patients received epidural infusions (preoperatively, intraoperatively, postoperatively), and “–“ means that the epidural infusion was stopped or not started;

^c“+” designates studies that show a statistically significant improvement of the study drug over the placebo in the treatment of postamputation pain, and “–“ designates studies that do not

Abbreviations: IM, intramuscular; IV, intravenous; PCA, patient-controlled analgesia.