A Prospective Randomized Double Blind Control Study of Duration of Analgesic Effect of Epidural Lignocaine 1.5% with Adrenaline and Neostigmine in 2 Different Doses for Lower Abdominal Surgeries

Several studies using neostigmine as an adjuvant to local anesthestics (LA) for intrathecal anaesthesia are available in literature all claiming obvious advantages; but neostigmine as an adjuvant to local anaesthetics for epidural anesthesia has not been studied yet. We have conducted a prospective double blinded randomized controlled trial on 30 ASA I and II patients of both sexes who were scheduled to undergo elective lower abdominal surgeries. The patients were allocated to three groups and received epidural anesthesia with 1.5% lignocaine with 90g adrenaline with either saline (G1), neostigmine10g/kg (G2) and 15g/kg (G3). The onset of sensory block, duration of postoperative analgesia and associated hemodynamic changes and sequelae between the three groups were studied. Pain was assessed using a 10cm visual analog scale (VAS). Addition of neostigmine to lignocaine resulted in decrease in onset of analgesia but prolonged the duration of analgesia with no sequelae.