ClinicalTrials.gg
CompletedNCT03303651MOGADAUpdated Apr 25, 2018

Monitor-Guided Analgesia During General Anesthesia - Part I

An interventional study of Opioid administration in intervention groups and Opioid administration in control group in Pain, Pain, Postoperative and Nociceptive Pain, sponsored by Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf. Completed at 1 site in Germany. Open to male participants aged 18 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2018-04-25.

Sponsored by Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment

Help build ClinicalTrials.gg — short surveys, remote interviews or testing, in your language. Take part →

Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
48
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
18 Years and older
Sex
Male
01

Where this study stands

Counted across the records on this site · 2026-11-13

Among 201 studies in Pain with a site in Germany — 13 open to participants now, 14 under way, 8 of them phase 3. Pain · Germany.

Enrollment
135th of 162
48 · median 111
Started
2017
with 6 others
No phase
58 of 201
3 open now
Registered
143rd of 201
by date

Among the 201 studies in Pain with a site in Germany, this one is the 135th largest by enrollment of the 162 interventional ones that give a count, is one of 7 that started in 2017, is one of 58 with no phase, and was the 143rd registered.

Pain

10,060 studies on the registry are indexed under Pain; 1,651 are open to participants now.

Browse Pain studies →

Open to participants now

13 of the 201 studies in Pain with a site in Germany are open now. Recruiting first, the newest first:

8 more — sign in →

All 13 open studies →

A study can be open while its sites in Germany have not opened yet or have stopped. Only those recruiting at a site in Germany →

Who these studies take

Of the 929 Pain studies recruiting now, 384 (41%) set no upper age limit and 434 (47%) stop at 75 or younger; 146 take children under 18; 222 take healthy volunteers.

This study: 18 Years and older · male · no healthy volunteers.

The full table on the hub →

This tab as a report to print or save as PDF → With an account.

Was this useful?
Watch this landscapeDownload CSVNarrow it in search →With an account: a weekly mail of what changed among 201 studies in Pain with a site in Germany, or all of them as a file.
02

Study summary

This prospective randomized clinical trial evaluates the effects of a monitor-guided opioid analgesia during general anesthesia. To date no standard-monitoring device exists to specifically reflect the analgesic component of general anesthesia. Quality and safety of general anesthesia are of major clinical importance and should be improved by limiting the opioid analgesic's dosage to the minimum amount needed. The study compares the effects of monitoring nociception during general anesthesia with different innovative techniques in comparison to routine clinical practice.

Read the detailed description

This prospective randomized clinical study aims to investigate the effects of a monitor-guided opioid analgesia during general anesthesia by different monitoring systems in comparison to routine clinical practice. Many surgical procedures require general anesthesia. The main components of general anesthesia are hypnosis and analgesia, and anesthesiologists usually combine a hypnotic drug with an opioid analgesic.

Until today, however, there is no standard-monitoring of nociception to specifically reflect the analgesic component of general anesthesia. In clinical practice the opioid dosage is chosen by clinical judgment of the attending anesthesiologist based upon changes of heart rate, blood pressure, pupil size, lacrimation and sweating of the patient.

On the one hand, underdosage of opioids can cause nociception leading to an increased sympathetic tone, increase of plasma levels of stress hormones, nociceptive movements as well as increase postoperative pain. On the other hand, overdosage of opioids can lead to drug side effects such as nausea and vomiting, hemodynamic instability, an increase in recovery times, immunosuppression and an increase in postoperative pain by opioid-induced-hyperalgesia. Quality and safety of general anesthesia are of major clinical importance and can be improved by limiting the administration of opioid analgesics to the optimal individual dose needed. In the last years, different analgesia monitoring devices have been developed for monitoring nociception. The present study evaluates the effects of the administration of opioids during general anesthesia guided by three different monitoring systems in comparison to routine clinical practice. After institutional approval by the Ethics committee of the Medical Board of the City of Hamburg, Germany and obtaining patients' written informed consent the investigators randomize elective patients with major abdominal surgery for open radical prostatectomy into one of four treatment groups.

03

Conditions studied

  • Pain
  • Pain, Postoperative
  • Nociceptive Pain
  • Opioid Use
  • Analgesia

Keywords

  • Analgesia, Monitoring, Opioid, Sufentanil, Sevoflurane
04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years and older
Sexes eligible
Male
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

  • Radical open abdominal prostatectomy scheduled in the operation theater where the study is conducted
  • > 18 years

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Chronic pain therapy, e.g. out-of-hospital opioid therapy
  • Beta blocker and digitalis therapy
  • Eye disease with affection of pupil reactivity
  • Pacemaker therapy
  • Higher degrees of cardiac arrhythmias, e.g. atrial fibrillation
  • Pre-operative medication with
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(1)

Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.

Corticosteroids (steroids)

Anti-inflammatory medicines such as prednisone, prednisolone and dexamethasone — not the anabolic steroids used for muscle.

Studies differ in what they allow: check which steroid medicines, routes (tablets, injections, creams, inhalers, eye drops) and doses this study accepts.

05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Treatment
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
Double (Participant, Outcomes assessor)
Enrollment
48 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    PPI (Pain Pupillary Index)

    Opioid administration guided by Pain Pupillary Index (PPI) derived from Videopupillometry performed with the device AlgiScan manufactured by IDMed, Marseille, France. The device measures the degree of pupillary reflex dilation (PRD) following an electric nociceptive stimulation. It automatically increases the intensity of the electric stimulation from 10 to 60 milliampere depending on the degree of PRD and afterwards displays the PPI. The numerical index ranges from 0 to 10. A low PPI score indicates a deep analgesia, a high PPI score indicates an insufficient or light analgesia. A PPI score of 2 or 3 is supposed to represent an optimal level of analgesia according to the manufacturer. 5 µg sufentanil will be administered every 5 minutes if PPI score is calculated more than 3.

    Procedure: Opioid administration in intervention groups

  • Experimental
    SPI (Surgical Pleth Index)

    Opioid administration (sufentanil) guided by by Surgical Pleth Index (SPI) derived from photoplethysmography performed by the device CARESCAPE B650 Patient Monitor from the manufacturer GE (General Electrics) Healthcare, Helsinki, Finland. Included in the monitoring system is a software that continuously calculates the SPI from normalized heart rate and pulse wave amplitude derived from finger plethysmography. The numerical index ranges between 0 (low sympathetic tone) and 100 (high sympathetic tone). A SPI score between 20 and 50 has been proposed as the target range to guide analgesics (15 - 17). 5 µg Sufentanil will be administered every 5 minutes if SPI score is calculated more than 50.

    Procedure: Opioid administration in intervention groups

  • Experimental
    NOL (Nociception Level)

    Opioid administration (sufentanil) guided by Nociception Level (NOL) derived from finger photoplethysmography performed with the analgesia monitoring device PMD200 manufactured by Medasense, Ramat Gan, Israel. The device continuously calculates the NOL with a multi-parametric approach from pulse rate, pulse rate variability, pulse wave amplitude, skin conductance level, skin conductance fluctuations, skin temperature and finger motion. The composite algorithm of the device analyses the data and the numerical index NOL is presented on a scale from 0 (no pain) to 100 (extreme pain) (18). A NOL score between 10 and 25 has been proposed as the target range to guide analgesics. 5 µg Sufentanil will be administered every 5 minutes if NOL score is calculated more than 25.

    Procedure: Opioid administration in intervention groups

  • Active comparator
    Control

    Opioid administration (sufentanil) guided according to standard clinical practice of the attending anesthesiologist based upon changes of heart rate, blood pressure, lacrimation and sweating of the patient.

    Procedure: Opioid administration in control group

Interventions

  • ProcedureOpioid administration in intervention groups

    Elective surgery in radical open abdominal prostatectomy. Opioid titration is guided by analgesia indices during general anesthesia in the experimental arms.

  • ProcedureOpioid administration in control group

    Elective surgery in radical open abdominal prostatectomy. Opioid titration is guided by clinical signs in the control group.

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Intraoperative opioid consumption

    Compares the amount of intraoperative opioid administration (sufentanil) per minute of general anesthesia and per kg bodyweight between groups.

    Time frame: 1 day

Secondary outcomes

  1. Time to extubation

    Postoperative recovery time: Time interval between end of operation and tracheal extubation of the patient.

    Time frame: 1 day

  2. Time to fit-for-discharge

    Postoperative recovery time: Time interval between postoperative tracheal extubation and the patient reaching fit-for-discharge criteria from the PACU to the ward.

    Time frame: 1 day

  3. Postoperative pain level

    Postoperative pain level measured with the highest score in numeric pain rating scale (NRS).

    Time frame: 1 day

  4. Postoperative opioid administration

    Amount of postoperative opioid administration (piritramid) in the postanesthesia care unit (PACU). Piritramid is given if NRS score is \> 3.

    Time frame: 1 day

  5. Patient satisfaction

    Patient satisfaction with the general anesthesia and pain management evaluated by a numeric rating scale.

    Time frame: 2-21 days

  6. Release of stress hormones

    Amount of perioperative plasma level of cortisol and ACTH.

    Time frame: 1 day

07

Study locations

1 site
  • Department of Anesthesiology; Center of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Hamburg Eppendorf University Medical Center
    Hamburg, 20257, Germany
08

References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No — All data will be anonymized before publication.

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

09

Timeline

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
ElapsedEstimatedEstimated, not yet reachedSimilar studies: half by the dot; the band is the middle halfHalf of similar studies reached it by the dot; the band is the middle half, from a quarter to three quarters

Ran from Oct 2017 to primary completion in Dec 2017, 1 month.

Of 3,734 non-industry interventional studies with no phase under Pain, half reached primary completion within 10 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 4 and three quarters within 23. This study's 1 month is below that.

Counting every sponsor, half of 3,833 studies reached it within 10 months; a quarter within 4 and three quarters within 23.

How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.

Registered
Aug 28, 2017
First posted
Oct 6, 2017
StartActual
Oct 16, 2017
Primary completionActual
Dec 5, 2017
CompletionActual
Jan 26, 2018
Last update
Apr 25, 2018
What these dates mean
Start.
When the first participant enrolled; while estimated, when the study expects to open to recruitment.
Primary completion.
When the last participant was examined or treated to collect data for the study's main question, its primary outcome. A study that stopped early gives the date its data collection stopped.
Completion.
When the last participant's last visit took place, for every outcome, secondary ones and side effects included: the end of the study. Often later than primary completion, sometimes the same day.
Actual and Est.
Actual means the registry says the date has happened. Est. (estimated) is a date the sponsor plans or expects. It can still move, and the sponsor is expected to change it to actual once it has passed.
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Apr 25, 2018, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT03303651
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Oct 6, 2017
Start date
Oct 16, 2017
Primary completion
Dec 5, 2017
Completion
Jan 26, 2018
Last update
Apr 25, 2018

Study contacts

Rainer Nitzschke, MD
principal investigator · Department of Anesthesiology; Center of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Hamburg Eppendorf University Medical Center
Sandra Funcke, MD
principal investigator · Department of Anesthesiology; Center of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Hamburg Eppendorf University Medical Center

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

Not currently enrolling

This study is completed, as verified in Apr 2018. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

Follow this study

Get an email when the registry record changes — status, dates, results — or when someone posts here.

Sign in to follow

Discussion

Questions and observations about this study, from anyone following it. Not medical advice, and not a channel to the study team — their contact details are on the registry record.

Sign in to join the discussion. Reading takes no account; posting does. You choose a display name, and a pseudonym is the default.

Nothing here yet. If you are running this trial, taking part in it, or weighing whether to, this is the place to say so.

Start the discussion