No abstract

Background poor controlled acute pain post-surgery is accompanied with several unwanted postoperative consequences, including patient agony, distress, myocardial ischemia, increased hospital stays and an increased possibility of post-operative chronic pain. Aim of the Work to study the effect of dexamethasone as a supplementary to bupivacaine in supraclavicular brachial plexus block. The comparison included the onset and the duration of the motor and sensory blocks, the duration of analgesia of the block and their effect on the postoperative analgesic needs. The effect of the drugs on hemodynamics and monitoring for the occurrence of any complication. Patients and Methods in our study, 50 patients were randomly divided into 2 equal groups. Perineural group received bupivacaine (0.5%) assosciated with 8 mg dexamethasone and Systemic group in which 8 mg of dexamethasone was injected systemically. All patients received equal volumes of 20 milliliters. Results our study revealed that adding 8 milligram of dexamethasone to bupivacaine in ultrasound-guided supraclavicular nerve block decreased the onset times of motor and sensory blocks and significantly increased their durations. In addition, dexamethasone prolonged the time of analgesia of the plexus block markedly, as shown by the time of request of first analgesia. Moreover, in perineural dexamethasone group, postoperative analgesic needs were much lesser than that of bupivacaine groups. Addition of dexamethasone perineural also did not affect the hemodynamics to a significant level. This makes perineural dexamethasone with bupivacaine more superior than the use of bupivacaine with addition of intravenous dexamethasone. Conclusion addition of Dexamethasone to bupivacaine in supraclavicular nerve block shortened the onset times of both sensory and motor blocks than injecting dexamethasone intravenously. Addition of Dexamethasone to bupivacaine significantly prolongs both sensory and motor block durations than injecting dexamethasone intravenously.

Background The use of opioids in intrathecal or epidural anesthesia has become popular to optimize postoperative analgesia. However, opioid-induced side effects, such as respiratory depression, nausea, vomiting, urinary retention and pruritus, limit their use. Objectives The purpose of this study was to assess the postoperative analgesic requirements and the analgesic effect of adding magnesium sulphate to epidural bupivacaine compared to addition of fentanyl in patients undergoing lower limb orthopedic surgery under combined spinal epidural anathesia. Patients and Methods After approval of ethical committee in our study and obtaining written informed consent from eligible patients the study was conducted on 60 patients classified to ASA I and II scheduled for lower limb orthopedic surgery. The study presents double armed randomized interventional prospective study including patients allocated into two equal groups each consists of 30 patients. Group (A): patients received magnesium sulphate added to bupivacaine in epidural, Group (B): patients received fentanyl added to bupivacaine in epidural Results The results of their study showed that the maximum level of sensory blockade was significantly higher in the combined fentanyl with magnesium group as compared with fentanyl group alone and magnesium sulphate group alone. The duration of sensory blockade of the combined fentanyl and magnesium group was significantly prolonged as compared to the other two groups as for the other two group the difference in the blockade duration was insignificant Conclusion We concluded that either magnesium sulfate (75 mg) combined with (10 ml) 0.25% Bupivacaine or fentanyl (1 µg/kg) combined with (10 ml) 0.25% Bupivacaine in combined spinal epidural improves intraoperative analgesia and prolongs early postoperative analgesia in lower limb orthopedic surgeries. The duration of analgesia was more prolonged in magnesium sulphate group than in the fentanyl group and this difference was statistically significant.