European Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine

Background:  Pain is defined as ‘an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage‘ or described in terms of such damage. Hysterectomy is a common elective surgical procedure performed for benign and malignant conditions of the uterus. Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of local infiltration with Ropivacaine 0.5% intraoperatively in controlling postoperative pain in women undergoing hysterectomy. Method: It is a Prospective interventional and observational study which includes 100 women which were divided into 2 groups. 10ml of 0.5% Ropivacaine was administered in group 1 and 10ml of Normal saline in group 2 intraoperatively. Pain intensity was measured at 2hrs,4hrs,8hrs,12hrs,24hrs post-op. The levels of pain, as well as the use of analgesics, postoperatively, were compared between the groups. Results: Mean pain intensity were significantly lower in the ropivacaine group compared with the saline group up to 8-12h postoperatively with a significant p value of <0.001** at 2h, 4h, 8h postoperatively as shown in Table 2. The effect of ropivacaine in reducing postoperative pain was clinically meaningful up to12h postoperative in most of the patients (Table 2) and there was no significance in pain intensity after 12hrs in both groups. The number of women reporting moderate/severe pain was significantly lower in the ropivacaine group compared with the saline group up to 8-12 h postoperatively. Conclusion: Ropivacaine significantly reduced pain intensity and the proportion of patients reporting moderate/severe pain up to 8-12 h postoperatively compared to saline group. The need for rescue analgesia was significantly reduced in ropivacaine infiltration group compared to saline group.