Preoperative gabapentin in laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Abstract EN

Facts in gabapentin use are known about its effect on neuropathic pain management while its clinical significance as analgesic in laparoscopic cholecystectomy has not been studied much to clarify its importance and to know how and when it could be used or if this new analgesic strategy can be an alternative to others or be as a part of multimodal analgesic therapy in postoperative management.

We conducted a prospective study to evaluate the significance of pre-emptive single dose gabapentin to reduce postoperative pain following laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Study group of hundred patients were analyzed in prospective study ; Fifty of them were gabapentin group and another fifty were placebo group.

Age, sex, body mass index, operation time and length of hospital stay were comparable in both groups.

Analgesic requirements were recorded and pain assessment using 100 visual analogue scale in both groups were studied at three times intervals of 8, 12 and 24 hours after surgery.

In addition we studied the incidence of certain postoperative side effects in both groups as nausea, vomiting and drowsiness.

Age, sex, body mass index, operation time and hospital stay were comparable in both groups. Opioid requirement two hours after surgery was significantly lower in gabapentin group than in placebo group (p < 0.05).

Also, significant difference was seen between gabapentin and placebo groups concerning the pain scores which were seen more in placebo as compared with gabapentin group in all study intervals (p < 0.05).

Significant difference between gabapentin and placebo groups was noticed regarding number of analgesic doses administered on the first 24 hours postoperatively which were more in placebo group (p < 0.05).

Insignificant difference was seen between gabapentin and placebo groups concerning certain postoperative side effects as nausea, vomiting and drowsiness (p > 0.05). In conclusion, our work shows that a single preoperative dose of gabapentin has a significant effect on postoperative pain after a laparoscopic cholecystectomy.