Comparing the effect of ketamine and benzydamine gargling with placebo on post-operative sore throat: A randomized controlled trial.
BACKGROUND
Air way intubation for general anesthesia usually leads to sore throat after surgery. Ketamine plays an important role to block a number of receptors related to pain. Benzydamine hydrochloride is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug that has been used to improve oropharyngeal disorders. In this study, it was intended to compare the effect of gargling different solutions before the surgery on post-operative sore throat (POST) in patients who underwent general anesthesia for hysterectomy.


METHODS
A total of 60 patients who underwent the elective hysterectomy were entered to the randomized controlled trial regarding to the eligibility criteria. Patients were simply randomly allocated to three groups and received one code. Every code was representative for a specific drug: 20 cc normal saline (control group) or 1.5 mg benzydamine in 20 cc solution or 20 mg ketamine in 20 cc solutions. All the research teams were blinded to the received solutions. POST was evaluated with numerical rating scale. The data were entered to SPSS software and analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance test, were performed.


RESULTS
The mean ages of ketamine, benzydamine, and normal saline recipients were not significantly different. The trend of the severity of sore throat during the first 24 h after the operation in ketamine recipients was significantly lower than the other two groups (P < 0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
The pain scale after surgery was reduced by using both ketamine and benzydamine, but the ketamine effect was more noticeable.
Department of Anaesthesiology, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Seyed Hamid Reza
SH
Faiz
Department of Anaesthesiology, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Poupak
P
Rahimzadeh
Department of Anaesthesiology, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Alireza
A
Poornajafian
Department of Anaesthesiology, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Naghme
N
Nikzad
Benzydamine; ketamine; post-operative sore throat; randomized controlled trial