Beclomethasone prevents postoperative sore throat

Abstract

The effects of a dose of beclomethasone inhaler (50 micrograms) or lidocaine 10% spray on postoperative sore throat were studied in 120 patients undergoing tracheal intubation for elective surgical procedures. Fifty-four patients (90%) in the beclomethasone group scored no postoperative sore throat compared with 27 (45%) in the lidocaine group (P < 0.001). Beclomethasone inhaler seems to be highly effective in the prevention of postoperative sore throat and is therefore to be recommended before tracheal intubation for general anaesthesia.

Assessment of the efficacy of dexamethasone, lignocaine or placebo in the prevention of post intubation sore throat

“…This was supported by one study [8]. But many studies did not agree with this finding [6,7,11,12,[17][18][19][20]. In our IJBR (2015) 6 (07) www.ssjournals.com study the maximum duration of anaesthesia was 758 minutes.…”

“…Smokers tend to have hyper reactive airway and they are more prone to have respiratory complications in the intraoperative and post operative period. Though many studies [6,13,18] did not find any correlation between smoking and postoperative sore throat, our study showed smoking as a significant predisposing factor for the development of postoperative sore throat. In our study 48% of smokers had sore throat whereas only 27.3% of nonsmokers had sore throat.…”

“…However, the incidence of sore throat in women (17%) was significantly higher than that in men, which was attributed to the tight fit of the endotracheal tube. Others did not agree with this [6,18]. In a study done by Valentine et al, though their primary aim was comparison after premedication with papaveretum/hyoscine or temazepam their data did not show any gender difference in the incidence of post intubation sore throat.…”

“…El. Hakim [18] used beclomethasone spray before intubation and found it decreased sore throat compared with 10% lignocaine spray. In Hamelberg's study [10] topical hydrocortisone ointment on the endotracheal tube reduced the incidence of symptoms from 35% to 26% though it is not statistically significant.…”

“…Many studies have found that the incidence of postoperative sore throat did not correlate with the age of the patient [6,11,14,18,20]. But Sprague et al [19] have found that the postoperative sore throat incidence was greater in the under forty age group than in the older group.…”