A Comparative Study between Intrathecal Fentanyl and Dexmedetomidine as Adjuvants to Hyperbaric Levobupivacaine 0.5% in Patients Undergoing Infra Umbilical Surgeries

Abstract

Background: Spinal anesthesia is a common technique for lower abdomen and lower limb surgery, but the use of local anesthetics alone may produce unwanted side effects such as prolonged motor and autonomic block, limited duration of action, besides, excessive local anesthetics can cause cardiac toxicity and central nervous system side effects. For these reasons, local anesthetics combined with other drugs, to utilize their synergistic analgesia and to reduce the dose of local anesthetics, has become a new option for anesthesiologists. Objectives: This study is designed to assess and compare the effect of intrathecal Fentanyl and Dexmedetomidine as adjuvants to hyperbaric Levobupivacaine 0.5% regarding the onset, duration of sensory and motor block, duration of post operative analgesia and possible side effects in patients undergoing infra umbilical surgeries. Materials and Methods: The study was performed at Ain Shams university hospitals. After obtaining ethical committee approval and informed consent from the patients. The study protocol was obtaining an informed consent; 75 patients admitted for infraumbilical surgeries in Ain Shams University hospitals operation theatre, were blindly randomized into three groups, using their medical record number (MRN) and subjected to a comparative study. A for Fentanyl group, group B for Dexmedetomidine group and group C for Levobupivacaine control group in the duration of 6 months from March to August 2019. Results: The study showed that the quality of intraoperative analgesia was significantly better with dexmedetomidine than fentanyl group, and the requirement for opioids was significantly lower with dexmedetomidine than fentanyl group. The degree of motor block and postoperative analgesia was significantly denser with dexmedetomidine than fentanyl group. Conclusion: From the current study we can conclude that using intrathecal 5 µg dexmetedomidine seems to be a suitable alternative to 25 µg fentanyl as adjuvants to 0.5% hyperbaric levobupivacaine in spinal anaesthesia. Its associated with prolonged motor and sensory block and provides good quality of intraoperative analgesia and extended duration of post operative analgesia as compared to fentanyl.