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How
would we interpret the results?
You answered:
 This
result excludes any analgesic effect of proglumide.
INCORRECT
It is
possible that this "analgesic assay" would have
been insensitive to even a powerful analgesic because of
the choice of patients, the way pain was assessed, or other
reasons. In order to assess assay sensitivity, one would
add a positive control group such as a background morphine
infusion, a larger standard PCA morphine bolus size than
3 mg, or a single strong analgesic treatment such as a large
analgesic dose or a nerve block . The comparison of this
treatment with the "placebo" (i.e. PCA morphine,
3 mg) group
( Figure 4.3b,c ) would reveal
whether the assay was:
Click
on images to enlarge
- Sensitive
enough to pick up the effects of this positive control
(thus proving that the proglumide supplements were
ineffective).
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- Insensitive
to the effects of a known analgesic (and hence inconclusive
regarding proglumide).
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