• Y L Wang, P P Tan, C H Yang, S C Tsai, and H S Chung.
• Department of Anaesthesia, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China.
• Anesth. Analg. 1997 Feb 1; 84 (2): 376-8.

AbstractWe performed a prospective, randomized, double-blind study to compare the effect of epidural dexamethasone on the incidence of postepidural backache after nonobstetric surgery. One thousand unpremedicated ASA physical status I or II patients scheduled for hemorrhoidectomy were randomly assigned to two groups: Group I patients received 25 mL 2% lidocaine with epinephrine 1:200,000 and 1 mL dexamethasone (5 mg) epidurally. Patients were interviewed at 24,48, and 72 h postoperatively using a standard visual analog scale (VAS) for evaluation of postepidural backache. A patient was considered to have postepidural backache when the postoperative VAS score was higher than the preoperative score. The incidence of postepidural backache in Group I patients for the 3 days were 22.8%, 17.4%, and 9.2%, all of which were significantly more frequent than observed in Group II patients (7.4%,5.6%, and 2.8%, P < 0.01). The severity and duration of postepidural backache were also significantly decreased in Group II patients. In our study, there was a significant association between postepidural backache and multiple attempts at epidural needle insertion. In summary, epidural dexamethasone reduced the incidence and severity of postepidural backache.

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