DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2018.v06i06.014

Pages: 2384-2390

Spinal anaesthesia is the most commonly used technique for lower abdominal surgeries as it is very economical, easy to administer, more rapid return to complete alertness when compared to general anaesthesia, superior postoperative analgesia and patient satisfaction, decreasing both the need for postoperative analgesics and the incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting and reduced the cost of outpatient surgical procedures by decreasing the necessity of recovery room and subsequent hospital admissions. In recent years, use of intrathecal adjuvant has gained popularity with the aim of prolonging the duration of block, prolonged postoperative pain control, better success rate, patient satisfaction, decreased resource utilization compared with general anaesthesia and faster recovery. The quality of the spinal anaesthesia has been reported to be improved by the addition of opioids (such as morphine, fentanyl and sufentanil) and other drugs (such as clonidine, magnesium sulfate, neostigmine, ketamine and midazolam). Hence, the present study is being undertaken to evaluate and compare the effects of dexmedetomidine and fentanyl as intrathecal adjuvants to bupivacaine.