Poorly controlled postoperative pain is associated with increased morbidity, negatively affects quality of life and functional recovery, and is a risk factor for persistent pain and longer-term opioid use. Up to 10% of opioid-naïve patients have persistent opioid use after many types of surgeries. Opioid-related side-effects and the opioid abuse epidemic emphasise the need for alternative, opioid-minimising, multimodal analgesic strategies, including neuraxial (epidural/intrathecal) techniques, truncal nerve blocks, and lidocaine infusions. The preference for minimally invasive surgical techniques has changed anaesthetic and analgesic requirements in abdominal surgery compared with open laparotomy, leading to a decline in popularity of epidural anaesthesia and an increasing interest in intrathecal morphine and truncal nerve blocks. Limited research exists on patient quality of recovery using specific analgesic techniques after intra-abdominal surgery. Poorly controlled postoperative pain after major abdominal surgery should be a research priority as it affects patient-centred short-term and long-term outcomes (including quality of life scores, return to function measurements, disability-free survival) and has broad community health and economic implications.

术后疼痛控制不佳与发病率增加有关，对生活质量和功能恢复产生负面影响，并且是持续疼痛和长期使用阿片类药物的危险因素。多达 10% 的阿片类药物初治患者在多种手术后持续使用阿片类药物。阿片类药物相关副作用和阿片类药物滥用流行强调需要替代的、减少阿片类药物的多模式镇痛策略，包括椎管内（硬膜外/鞘内）技术、躯干神经阻滞和利多卡因输注。与开腹手术相比，对微创手术技术的偏好改变了腹部手术对麻醉和镇痛的要求，导致硬膜外麻醉的普及率下降，对鞘内吗啡和躯干神经阻滞的兴趣日益增加。对腹腔内手术后使用特定镇痛技术恢复患者质量的研究有限。腹部大手术后控制不佳的术后疼痛应成为研究重点，因为它会影响以患者为中心的短期和长期结果（包括生活质量评分、功能恢复测量、无残疾生存），并具有广泛的社区健康和经济影响。