Ketamine in Acute Abdominal Pain in Patients with Lead Poisoning

Abstract

<i>Introduction: </i>In this study, we investigated the effect of intravenous ketamine administration on the treatment of acute abdominal pain in lead poisoning patients. <i>Methods: </i>In this cross sectional study, we evaluated 20 patients with opium abuse with acute abdominal pain. With cardiac monitoring, 0.25 mg/kg ketamine (maximum dose was considered as 20 milligrams) was administered during 30 to 60 seconds. To control ketamine complications 0.03 mg/kg midazolam (maximum dose was considered as 2 milligrams) was injected slowly during one or two minutes. Patients were observed in the ED for the next 6 hours. Pain score was assessed based on VAS with a serial method, before ketamine administration, every hour for the next two hours and every two hours for four hours. <i>Results: </i>In this study 20 patients were enrolled with mean age of 37.2 ± 4.2 years (range from 30 to 44 yrs.). Repeated measurement test shows significant reduce in pain score after ketamine administration (P=0.001). Five patients report no pain 4 hours after ketamine injection, and 3 of them left the hospital with personal consent. From 17 remaining patients, 13 ones (76.4%) had no pain, and mean VAS score in other 4 patients was 1 or 2. <i>Conclusion: </i>our results show that single dose injectable ketamine is one of the best methods with the least side effects to alleviate acute abdominal pain in patients with drug abuse.