A Prospective Study to Compare the Perioperative Oral Duloxetine and Gabapentin for Postoperative Quality of Recovery in Female Patients Undergoing Lower Abdominal Gynecological Surgeries

Background: Continuous efforts are being taken to provide better postoperative quality of recovery especially in female patients in terms of both physical and emotional parameters after surgery and anaesthesia. Method: The present study was carried out in 70 female patients of ASA Grade I & II between the age group of 20-50 years scheduled to undergo lower abdominal surgery. They were randomly divided into two groups of 35 patients each to receive either table t duloxetine 60 mg or gabapentin 900 mg orally 3 hours prior to surgery and repeated 24 hours later with the same dose. Results: Both the groups were comparable regarding mean age and weight of the patients (Table I). There was highly significant difference in both mean and median values of quality of recovery in both the groups with better scores in the gabapentin group. The mean opioid requirement in group A was 2.83±1.20 and in group B was 1.90±1.04 which was also highly significant, p value 0.0009. Regarding patient satisfaction 54.28% patients in gabapentin group showed excellent satisfaction as compared to 28.50% patients in duloxetine group, p value 0.057. Side effects were observed more in Group A Conclusion: Gabpentin should be considered as an effective strategy for improving the postoperative quality of recovery and reducing the post-surgical narcotic consumption and related side effects.