Comparison of caudal bupivacaine and bupivacaine-tramadol combination for postoperative analgesia in children undergoing lower abdominal surgeries

Background & objectives: Postoperative pain needs to be relieved with minimum side-effects and as cheaply as possible. A combination of drugs may be the best way to treat postoperative pain. Caudal block has been conveniently used by the anesthesiologists in pediatric surgery for this purpose. This study compared the use of bupivacaine alone with bupivacaine plus tramadol for a single shot caudal block to find out whether tramadol can be an effective adjuvant to bupivacaine for providing better postoperative analgesia in children undergoing lower abdominal surgery. Methodology: This randomized controlled trial was conducted at Department of Anesthesiology, Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad, for six months. A total of 150 children undergoing lower abdominal surgery were randomly allocated into two groups using a lottery method; 75 children in Group B were treated with bupivacaine-with tramadol, and 75 patients in Group A were treated with bupivacaine only. A caudal epidural block was performed immediately after induction of anesthesia. Study outcomes were monitored in terms of duration of analgesia using TPPPS pain score. Results: - The average age of the patients was 5.14