Comparison of Haemodynamic Response among Patients Posted for Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy with or without Oral Clonidine as Premedication- A Prospective Comparative Study

Background: Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is one of the most commonly performed surgeries and has now being recognized as the gold standard for the treatment of cholelithiasis. It is known fact that laparoscopy has several advantages due to creation of pneumoperitoneum during the surgical procedure which is responsible for several deleterious haemodynamic and cardiorespiratory changes. Thus, our present study was designed tostudy of haemodynamic response to oral clonidine as pre medication in laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Methods: In this prospective comparative study, 128 patients between the age group of 18-60 years, belonging to ASA 1 and ASA 2 categories scheduled for elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy under general anaesthesia were categorized into 2 groups as Group C and Group NC with 64 patients in each group. Patients in Group C received premedication with oral clonidine 150μg 90 minutes prior to surgery and Group NC did not receive oral clonidine 150μg. The two groups were compared with respect to heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure and post operative complications. Results: There was significant increase in all the haemodynamic variables in group C as compared to group NC where the variables remained close to baseline while the patients in Group C showed less post operative complications as compared to NC group. Conclusion: Oral premedication with clonidine helps in blunting the haemodynamic response to pneumoperitoneum and also has less post operative complications.