Effects of Gabapentin on Postoperative Pain after Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Postoperative pain prevention and treatmentcontinues to be a major challenge in postoperative care.Gabapentin has recently become a part of a wide array ofpostoperative multimodal analgesic regimens. Present studyevaluated the efficacy of oral gabapentin in relief of acutepost-operative pain in laparoscopic cholecystectomy and alsocompared the efficacy of oral Gabapentin with that of oralTramadol.Material and Methods: Sixty ASA I and II physicalstatus patients of both sexes between 20-60 years of agescheduled for elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy wereenrolled into this prospective, double blinded, randomizedsequential allocation study. Any patient who was unwillingand uncooperative, ASA III and IV physical status, patientshaving body weight exceeding 20% of ideal body weight,known hypersensitive to any drug, drug or alcohol abuse,pregnant patient, uncontrolled concomitant medical diseases,history of chronic pain conditions, impaired kidney or liverfunction, laparoscopic cholecystectomy converted to opencholecystectomy, in whom some kind of analgesics wereadministered within 48 hrs of planned surgery were excludedfrom the study.Result: Sixty patients (30 males) were enrolled in the studywith mean ages of all three groups range from 37.40±9.18to 41.70±6.84. However the mean age, weight and sexdistribution among different groups were statisticallyinsignificant (P>0.05). Mean heart rate in various groups atdifferent intervals were insignificant (p>0.05) in the intraoperative period. Among group I, II and III in the postoperativeperiod, changes in mean heart rate was statistically significant(p<0.05). The changes in mean SBP and DBP werestatistically insignificant (p>0.05) intraoperatively in the threegroups.Conclusion: Premedication with oral 300 mg gabapentinprovides better pain relief in the postoperative period ascompare to oral 100 mg tramadol and placebo group withminimal side effects.