Dexmedetomidine and Fentanyl for Postoperative Analgesia in Patients Undergoing Abdominal Surgery: Randomised Controlled Trial

Abstract

Introduction: Pain control is an important factor for postoperative recovery. Many drugs have been studied for effectiveness of postoperative analgesia. Fentanyl is a conventional drug and dexmedetomidine is one of the emerging drugs used for analgesia and postoperative pain control. Aim: To compare the effect of fentanyl and dexmedetomidine on pain control and haemodynamic stability. Materials and Methods: A randomised controlled trial was conducted on 60 patients (30 each group) undergoing for abdominal surgery, between January 2019 to January 2020. Group A received fentanyl loading dose 2 µg/kg I.V. followed by 0.5 µg/kg/hr infusion and group B received dexmedetomidine loading 1 µg/kg over 10 minutes followed by maintenance 0.5 µg/kg/hr infusion. Infusion was continued up to four hours during surgery and till eight hours of postoperative in both groups. Haemodynamic parameters {Heart Rate (HR), Mean Arterial Pressure (MAP)} were recorded after start of study drug infusion, after intubation, then every 15 minutes till 1 hour, then every 30 minutes till end of surgery and after extubation. In postoperative period, HR and MAP were recorded at interval of one hour till eight hours after extubation and postoperative analgesia was assessed by Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) at interval of one hour till eight hours. Present study used descriptive statistical analysis for data analysis. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare data between two groups. Chi-square test was used to find the significance of difference on categorical scale between two groups. Results: This study showed that group-B had significantly less VAS score most of time in recovery period as compared to group-A (1.97±0.18 vs 2.10±0.31 at eight hours postoperative). HR, MAP was found significantly less all the time during surgery and most of the time postoperatively in group-B (p-value <0.05). Conclusion: Intravenous infusion of dexmedetomidine can be better for controlling postoperative pain and perioperative haemodynamic stability as compared to infusion of fentanyl in patients undergoing abdominal surgeries.

Keywords

• alpha-receptor agonist
• laparotomy
• opioids
• pain control