Postoperative Analgesic Effectiveness of Bupivacaine With and Without Dexmedetomidine in Patients With Abdominal Surgery

Overview

Abdominal surgeries are major surgical procedures that are performed at any teaching hospital. Pain control is major concern in the intra-operative as well as post-operative period in these patients. Optimal pain control in post-operative period is directly related to patient's recovery, shortens the patients' hospital stay and overall burden on health facilities. Inadequate pain control may affect quality of life and increases patient's morbidity and mortality. Different modalities for pain control are used in post-operative period. Opioids are mainstay of treatment in post-operative period but historically are associated with significant side effect profile like dependence, nausea, vomiting, respiratory depression, constipation and many others. Dexmedetomidine is centrally acting α-2 adrenoceptor agonist.

This randomized controlled trial was conducted at Department of Anesthesia, Sahiwal Teaching Hospital, Sahiwal. After institutional review board (IRB) approval, computer-generated random number table was used to randomize the patients to two groups, one group received Bupivacaine plus placebo and the other group received Bupivacaine plus dexmedetomidine. A total of 64 patients met the inclusion criteria and were enrolled in the study in a 1:1. Informed written consent was obtained from all the patients before enrolling them in the study. All patients underwent a pre-operative assessment on the day before surgery. Both groups received wound infiltration with studied drugs at the end of surgery. After surgery patients were shifted to post-surgical ward and assessed for pain using visual analogue scale (VAS) and data was collected and analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26. Quantitative variables were presented with mean ±SD. Comparison of quantitative variable between groups was done using independent sample t-test. Comparison of qualitative variable like (Opioid sparing effect, Bradycardia, Hypotension, Nausea, Vomiting) was presented with frequency and percentages. Data was stratified on the basis of gender and age. Post-stratification chi-square test was used to compare both groups for opioid sparing effect in each stratum with p-value ≤0.05 as significant.