5.9 Glucocorticoids for pain management
Glucocorticoids have a number of beneficial properties in a surgical setting. In addition to
being antiemetic, they are antiinflammatory, analgesic, antipyretic, and antiallergic34.
Glucocorticoids exert their effects by binding to a glucocorticoid receptor (GR) localized in
the cytoplasm of target cells. There is a single class of GR that binds glucocorticoids, with no
evidence for subtypes of differing affinity in different tissues35.