Efficacy of preoperative gabapentin in producing post-operative analgesia in patients undergoing elective surgery under general Anaesthesia: A randomized double blinded trial

Abstract

Background: Gabapentin is an adjuvant antiepileptic agent with analgesic properties used for the treatment of postoperative pain. The primary objective of this study is to assess and compare the analgesic effects of administering Gabapentin and Paracetamol pre-operatively, in patients undergoing elective surgery, under General Anesthesia. Methods: The study was a single-center, randomized and double-blind trial. A total of 60 patients of either sex, age > 18 yrs, with American Society of Anesthesiology (ASA) status I/II undergoing elective ENT surgery, under General Anaesthesia at a tertiary care hospital were included in this study. The patients were randomized into two groups. 30 patients were randomized to Group 1, who received oral Paracetamol, one hour prior to surgery. Group 2 had 30 patients who received oral Gabapentin, preoperatively. In this study, comparison of the duration of analgesia provided by a single dose of 600mg of Gabapentin over 650mg of Paracetamol, consumption of postoperative rescue analgesia and the incidence of side effects between both groups were assessed. Results: The mean duration of analgesia produced by Paracetamol was 83 minutes, whereas the mean duration of analgesia produced by Gabapentin was 74.48minutes(P=0.4413). The mean analgesic consumption of group 1 which received Paracetamol was 53.0 mg of Tramadol, whereas the mean analgesic consumption of group 2 which received Gabapentin was 51.66 mg of Tramadol (P=0.627). The incidence of adverse effects like nausea, vomiting, dizziness and headache were comparable but statistically not significant. Conclusions: Both Paracetamol and Gabapentin were comparable in terms of potency as pre-emptive analgesic. The mean duration of analgesia produced by paracetamol and gabapentin were found to be in same range. This study has shown that the time to first rescue analgesia, total amount of rescue analgesia between the two groups in the first 6 hours following surgery were not statistically significant.