A Comparative Study between Butorphanol and Fentanyl as an Analgesic in Patients Undergoing Abdominal Surgeries under General Anesthesia

Abstract

Background: Narcotic analgesics are frequently utilized during epidural anesthesia in addition to local anesthetics (LA). However, the parent drug, morphine, had a long latency and was poorly soluble in lipids when it was first used for epidural analgesia. Fentanyl and butorphanol have not been compared in any research as supplements for intraoperative epidural anesthesia. For lower abdominal surgery, the current study compared the effectiveness and safety of epidural fentanyl versus epidural butorphanol. Materials and Methods: Patients undergoing abdominal surgery in the Department of Anesthesiology at a Tertiary Care Teaching institute in Tamil Nadu participated in a hospital-based randomized clinical study. All of the patients in the Department of Anesthesiology who had elective abdominal surgery were included in the 15-month research. The patients were split into two groups: Group A received an intravenous dose of 40 μg/kg butorphanol, whereas group B received an intravenous dose of 2 μg/kg fentanyl. Results: There were 100 participants in all, with men making up the majority (57.0%) and having a M:F ratio of 1.3:1. The participants in the study were 46.9 ± 6.8 years old on average. Conclusion: Butorphanol is found to be a better analgesic when compared to fentanyl, along with cardio-stability and fewer complications.