The study, presented at the American Society of Anesthesiologists annual meeting in San Francisco, used the same patches smokers use to help decrease their dependency on nicotine to administer 7 milligrams of nicotine to patients who post surgically could access morphine through a self-controlled device.

"Some patients would rather experience the pain than the potential side effects of morphine and other painkillers," study author Dr. Ashraf Habib, of Duke University Medical Center, in Durham, N.C., said in a statement. "The study suggests that the nicotine patch has a useful effect in improving pain relief after surgery."

The study, which gave 90 non-smoking men about to undergo a prostatectomy -- removal of the prostate gland -- either a nicotine patch or an identical placebo patch before anesthesia, found the patients who received the nicotine patch self-administered significantly less morphine in the postoperative period. In general, the nicotine patch was well-tolerated by patients, however, patients receiving nicotine reported higher levels of nausea.