Intravenous Regional Anesthesia by Different Combination of Drugs

Abstract

Intravenous regional anesthesia (IVRA) is a safe and effective way to provide anesthesia for upper limb surgery of less than one hour duration. Unfortunately, IVRA has some disadvantages e.g. tourniquet pain, poor muscle relaxation, immediate postoperative pain. The main disadvantage is the risk of leakage and the potential for systemic local anesthetic toxicity. The ann of this work was to compare and evaluate the efficacy of different combinations of drugs used for IVRA, as regard the adequacy of analgesia (intraoperative and postoperative), providing optimal surgical conditions and reduction of the risk of local anesthetic toxicity. One hundered unpremeditated patients of both sexes, ASA physical status I and II, were assigned in a randomized double blind fashion to the following five equal groups: Group A (lidocaine group) patient received only 0.6 mL/kg of lidocaine 0.5% (3 mg/kg) for IVRA. Group B (lidocaine-fentanyl group): patients received, 0.6 mL/kg of lidocaine 0.25% (1.5 mg/kg) plus 50 microgram fentanyl for IVRA.