The Effect of Dexamethasone Administration on Postoperative Pain Following Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy: A...

Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is the standard surgical procedure in symptomatic gallstones. Laparoscopy is a minimally invasive surgical method. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of dexamethasone (DX) administration on postoperative pain management following laparoscopic cholecystectomy.

165 patients with laparoscopic cholecystectomy surgery were studied in this double-blind clinical trial. They were randomly divided into three groups: A) DX1 (Intravenous DX): Injection of 0.1 mg/kg DX intravenously, B) DX2 (Local DX): Injection of 0.1 mg/kg of DX, diluted with normal saline, injection volume of 10 mL, injection into the bed of the removed gallbladder through a laparoscopic 10 mm subxiphoid trocar, and C) Control: Injection of placebo, the volume and injection site are similar to group B. The amount of postoperative pain in patients was recorded using the Visual Analogue Scale score in 5 times (15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 6 hours, and 12 hours after entering the recovery room).

In terms of postoperative pain, there was a statistically significant difference between the studied groups so that the amount of postoperative pain 6 hours and 12 hours after surgery in the intravenous DX group was lower than that in the local DX and placebo groups (P = 0.001).

The results of this study showed that the administration of intravenous DX has a better effect than the administration of local DX in pain management after laparoscopic cholecystectomy.