COMPARISON OF ANALGESIC EFFECTS OF INTRAVENOUS NALBUPHINE AND PENTAZOCINE IN PATIENTS POSTED SURGICAL PROCEDURE: A PROSPECTIVE RANDOMIZED DOUBLE BLIND STUDY

Dr. Uma Shankar Gupta, Mayur Gupta* and Palak Chavda

ABSTRACT

Background and objectives: Postoperative pain is acute pain and can affect nearly every organ function and may adversely influence postoperative morbidity and mortality. Pharmacological management with intravenous opioids is a common, effective and a well known method used to treat this pain. Primary objective was to compare effects of intravenous nalbuphine and intravenous pentazocine in terms of duration of analgesia and secondary objective was to study side effect profile. Methods: 60 American Society of Anaesthesiologists (ASA) physical status I and II patients undergoing short duration surgery under general anaesthesia were randomly allocated in two groups of 30 each to receive either nalbuphine(group A) or pentazocine (group B) intravenously. Patients were monitored for any side effects, postoperative duration of analgesia and need for rescue analgesia. Two sample t-tests was used to investigate and model the impact of various parameters like duration of analgesia and side effect profile. Results: Duration of analgesia in group A (7.43±1.63hours) was significantly prolonged as compared to group B (4.73±1.62hours). The difference was statistically significant (p <0.05). Sedation was not significant in group A as compared to group B. Conclusion: Nalbuphine, a synthetic opioid agonist- antagonist provides good postoperative analgesia in minor general surgical patients as compared to fentanyl and pentazocine, hence useful in day care surgeries.

Keywords: Nalbuphine, pentazocine, postoperative analgesia.