Prevention of urinary retention with phenoxybenzamine during epidural morphine.

Prevention of urinary retention with phenoxybenzamine during epidural morphineSince the first reports by Wang and Behar and others the use of epidu- ral and intrathecal opiates for pain relief has become widely accepted.The most common and distressing complication of this mode of anal- gesia is acute urinary retention, which occurs in 3%' to 100%'o2 of three patients in group 1 and in none of the patients in group 2. Oral phenoxybenzamine given during epidural analgesia was not associated with hypotension or with any other untoward effect.