Journal of AdvancedMedical and Dental Sciences Research

Background: Traditional abdominal hysterectomy (AH) is one of the most common gynaecological surgical procedures in the treatment of benign gynaecological diseases. Ropivacaine is a long-acting regional anaesthetic that is structurally related to Bupivacaine. Dexmedetomidine is a useful sedative agent with analgesic properties. Hence; the present study was undertaken for assessing and comparing the analgesic efficacy of Ropivacaine with Ropivacaine plus Dexmedetomidine for epidural block in abdominal hysterectomy surgery. Materials & methods: A total of 40 patients were enrolled who were scheduled to undergo abdominal hysterectomy surgery. All the patients were randomized into two study groups with 20 patient in each group as follows: Group A: Ropivacaine group, and Group B: Ropivacaine plus Dexmedetomidine. After placing the catheter in L1-L2 epidural space, general anaesthesia was instituted in all patients using a standardised technique. After recovery from GA, pain was assessed by VAS. The patients were administered first top up dose through epidural route as soon as VAS score exceeded 3 and time was noted for duration of analgesia. Total requirement of Ropivacaine in 24 hours was also noted. All the results were recorded and analysed by SPSS software. Results: Mean duration of analgesia was 169.3 minutes and 356.1 minutes among subjects of group A and group B respectively. Significant results were obtained while comparing the mean duration of analgesia among the patients of the two study groups. Conclusion: Addition of dexmedetomidine to local anaesthetic agent ropivacaine significantly prolongs the duration of analgesia in epidural blocks.