Pain during intravenous Propofol injection and its prevention in the pediatric population. A randomized controlled trial.

Abstract

Objectives: The aim of our study is to observe the pain difference as experienced by the pediatric patient when administered different preparations of propofol utilizing the verbal rating scale. Study Design: Prospective double-blind randomized control trial. Setting: A large tertiary care hospital in Karachi, Pakistan. Period: 6 months from June 2016 to November 2016. Material & Methods: The final patient population included in the study was n= 180 and were divided into six groups. These patients received general anesthesia and underwent surgery. Patients in Group A received 2ml of normal saline and a mixture of propofol and normal saline after waiting for half a minute. Group B patients received 0.5mg/kg Lidocaine followed by normal saline after waiting for half a minute. Group C received 2ml of normal saline followed by a mixture of propofol and Lidocaine after half a minute. Group D received 0.2mg/kg of Ketamine followed by a mixture of normal saline and propofol. Group E patients received 2ml of normal saline followed by a mixture of propofol and Ketamine half a minute later. And finally, patients belonging to group F received 2ml of normal saline followed by a mixture of propofol M/LCT and normal saline half a minute later respectively. Results: The gender, age, body weight and ASA grade of all the pediatric patients were similar having a P value of >0.05. The incidence rate of propofol injection pain in the groups were found to be Group A= 76.66%, Group B= 66.66%, Group C= 50%, Group D= 60%, Group E= 63.33%, Group F= 60% respectively. The incidence rate for adverse events was significantly lower in all the groups as compared to Group A that is the normal saline and propofol group having a p-value of less than 0.01. And the incidence rate of adverse events was lower in Groups C, D, E, and F were significantly lower than Group B having a p-value of less than 0.05. All the experimental groups had significantly lower scores of the VRS scale as compared to the control group (Group A) and the intergroup differences were found to be statistically significant having a p-value of less than 0.01. Conclusion: In our study, we found that the injection pain of propofol administration in the pediatric population was significantly reduced when using M/LCT pre-injection, 0.5mg/kg lidocaine or 0.2mg/kg of Ketamine. Another good combination is mixing 180mg propofol with 40mg of lidocaine or mixing propofol with 16mg of Ketamine.