Fig. 2. For postoperative pain intensity (visual analog scale) during cough patient-controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA) provided significantly better pain relief than did patient-controlled analgesia (PCA; by repeated-measures analysis of variance;P = 0.002). Values are the mean ± SD. *P < 0.05 compared with PCA (Wilcoxon rank sum test). a = afternoon; e = evening; ext = extubation; m = morning; POD = postoperative day.