Comparison of Dexamethasone with Local Anesthetic versus Local Anesthetic for Laparoscopic Port Infiltration to Assess Effectiveness as Post-operative Analgesia

Abstract

Background: Early postoperative pain remains the most prevalent complaint after any surgery. Besides conventional analgesic medications, subcutaneous infiltration has been established as a reliable pain relief technique. The addition of dexamethasone to local anesthetic (example: bupivacaine, lidocaine) can also be used as it has some beneficial effects compared to the use of bupivacaine only. Aim of the study: The objective of this study was to evaluate the duration of analgesic effects of dexamethasone with local anesthetic as compared to local anesthetic in the post-operative patient. Methods: This randomized controlled trial study was conducted in among 60 patients who underwent Laparoscopic cholecystectomy. This study was conducted from January 2019 to June 2019. All patients who underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy surgery were selected by purposive sampling. Data were compiled, edited, analyzed. The SPSS version 23 was used for data analysis. Results: Most of the patients in Group 2 have a long analgesia effect (NRS score more than 5), delay requirement of first rescue analgesia. NRS (Numerical Rating Scale) scores in Group 2 were persistently lower than that of Group 1. This revealed that the combination of Bupivacaine and Dexamethasone is quite effective in reducing port site pain in comparison to Bupivacaine (P=<0.001).