ABSTRACT
Post operative pain is usually treated by opioids, which is expensive and may induce various side effects. Non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs have been considered recently for controlling pain due to their cheapness, fewer side effects and availability. This study compares the analgesic efficacy of preoperative administration of single dose of rectally diclofenac and acetaminophen for post operative analgesia in septorhinoplasty, one of the most common head and neck surgeries. Sixty adult patients with ASA =1 underwent septorhinoplasty were randomly divided into two equal groups. Thirty minutes before induction of anesthesia, 100 mg diclofenac suppository and 325 mg of rectal acetaminophen were given to group I and group II respectively. Induction and maintenance of anesthesia were similar in all patients. Then the severity of pain was graded 1, 2 and 4 hours after operation according to Visual Analogue Scale. Also the first time of analgesic request and: total administered dose of analgesics were assessed by another person in all patients. Results revealed that severity of pain in diclofenac group in all three defined times was significantly less than that in the other group [p<0.05]. Also the average of first time analgesic request in group 1 and 2 was 205 and 97 minutes respectively and the average dose of administered pehtidine was 12.25 mg in diclofenac and 37.15mg in acetaminophen group. The pre-operative administration of rectal diclofenac was more effective for post septorhioplasty analgesia than the rectal acetaminophen and thus it could be used and recommended as a safe, compensive and effective method for post operative pain relief in this common surgery