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Tramadol hydrochloride is a novel, centrally acting analgesic with two complementary mechanisms of action: opioid and aminergic. Relative to codeine, tramadol has similar analgesic properties but may have fewer constipating, euphoric, and respiratory depressant effects. A two-center randomized double-blind controlled clinical trial was performed to assess the analgesic efficacy and reported side effects of tramadol 100 mg, tramadol 50 mg, codeine 60 mg, aspirin (ASA) 650 mg with codeine 60 mg, and placebo. Using a third molar extraction pain model, 200 healthy subjects were enrolled in a 6-hour evaluation after a single dose of drug. Of the 200 patients enrolled, seven provided incomplete efficacy data or discontinued prematurely and one was lost to follow-up. Using standard measures of analgesia, including total pain relief score (TOTPAR), maximum pain relief score (MaxPAR), sum of pain intensity difference scores (SPID), peak pain intensity difference (Peak PID), remedication, and global evaluations, all active treatments were found to be numerically superior to placebo. ASA/codeine was found to be statistically superior to placebo for all measures of efficacy. Tramadol 100 mg was statistically superior to placebo for TOTPAR, SPID, and time of remedication, whereas tramadol 50 mg was statistically superior to placebo onlyfor remedication time. Codeine was not found to be statistically superior to placebo for any efficacy measure. A greater TOTPAR response compared with all other active measures was seen for ASA/codeine during the first 3 hours of study. The 6-hour TOTPAR scores for the tramadol groups and ASA/ codeine group were not significantly different. Gastrointestinal side effects (nausea, dysphagia, vomiting) were reported more frequently with tramadol 100 mg, ASA/ codeine, and codeine 60 mg than with placebo.
Moore et al. (Mon,) studied this question.