Comparison of Tramadol and Ketorolac as Post-operative Analgesia in Open Cholecystectomy.

Objectives: To compare the response of Tramadol and Ketorolac and to compare the side effects of the said drugs. Better post-operative pain control is always a difficult task for health care providers. The more potent analgesic drugs like opioids have more side effects like nausea, vomiting, pruritus and respiratory depression. Ketorolac is an NSAIDs that has shown promising results in controlling moderate to severe pain with lesser side effects. Open cholecystectomy is a common abdominal procedure and good intra and post-operative pain control will result in better recovery and patient relief. Methodology. It was a prospectively conducted double blind randomized control trials in which 101 cases were enrolled. It was six months duration study from July 2019 to January 2020. All patients were randomly distributed among two groups. In group A, inj. Tramadol 100 mg while in group B, inj. Ketorolac 30 mg was given. Pain intensity was assessed by numerical rating scale. Epiinfo Version 7.2 and Microsoft Excel 2007 Workbook were used for data set analysis. Results. In 101 patients 22 were males (21.8 %) and 79 were females (78.2 %) with male: female ratio1:3.6. The mean age group was 38 years ranging from 24 to 58 years. In Group A, Tramadol was given to 51 patients while in Group B, inj. Ketorolac was given to 50 patients. In Group A, 47 patients (92 %) were pain free at six hours while four and eleven (11) patients were given additional analgesia at 6^th and 8^th hour respectively. In group B, 44 patients (88 %) responded well to analgesic effect in first three hours. At 6^th hour, 18 patients (36 %) were having moderate degree of pain and additional analgesia was given.12 more patients (24 %) needed additional analgesia at 8^th hour. . Eight (16 %) and two (4 %) patients complained of nausea and vomiting in Group A and B at first hour respectively. No respiratory depression was observed in any group. Conclusions. Ketorolac may be used as an alternative to opioids including tramadol as it gives equivalent pain control for intermediate duration surgical procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]