Postoperative Analgesia After Inguinal Herniotomy in Children; A Comparison of Combination of Intravenous Paracetamol and Rectal Diclofenac with Caudal Bupivacaine

Objective: To compare the efficacy of intravenous paracetamol and rectal diclofenac combination with caudal block using 1ml/kg of 0.25% bupivacaine in the management of post-operative pain following paediatric inguinal herniotomy. Methodology: This quasi-experimental study was conducted at the Department of Anesthesia, Holy Family Hospital, Rawalpindi, from February 2020 to August 2020. A total of 342 children aged 2-12 years requiring inguinal herniotomy were enrolled after satisfying the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Computer-generated random numbers were used to split the patients into two groups. Group A received intravenous paracetamol (30 mg/kg) and rectal diclofenac (1mg/kg). Group B received a caudal block using 1ml/kg of 0.25% Bupivacaine. Pain was assessed postoperatively in the PACU by modified Objective Pain Scale (OPS) every 15 minutes for the 1st hour and hourly up till 8 hours. Effective analgesia was defined as a modified OPS score of ≤ 3 for upto 8 hours after shifting to PACU. If at any time, the score was >3 and the patient required a rescue analgesic, effective anaglesia was not achieved. Results: Effective analgesia was achieved in 82.46% of the patients (n=141) in Group-A versus 87.13% patients (n=149) in Group-B (p-value: 0.23).  Conclusion: There is no significant difference in the efficacy of analgesia in paracetamol/diclofenac combination group compared with caudal bupivacaine group.