Abstract

Introduction: Femur fractures cause moderate to severe pain which requires effective analgesia both preoperatively and postoperatively, poor pain management can have serious physiological and psychological consequences.
Aim: To compare the postoperative analgesic efficacy between 0.25% Bupivacaine and 0.2% Ropivacaine in ultrasound guided fascia iliaca compartment block for femur surgeries under epidural anaesthesia.
Materials and Methodology: This is a randomized clinical study conducted at a tertiary care centre, after receiving approval from institute’s ethical committee. 60 patients posted for femur surgeries under epidural anesthesia were divided into groups of 30 each. Postoperatively ultrasound guided fascia iliaca block using 0.25% bupivacaine 20 ml for group B and 0.2% Ropivacaine 20 ml was given to group R and are compared. The time from fascia iliaca compartment block to first requirement of analgesia for both the groups calculated.
Results: Demographic characteristics and BMI are statistically similar between both the groups. The mean time for duration of analgesia for bupivacaine group was 307.83±34.43 minutes and that of Ropivacaine group was 262.67±31.39 minutes. So, the mean duration of post-operative analgesia of the Bupivacaine group was more than that of Ropivacaine group which was statistically significant. Both the groups maintained hemodynamic stability.
Conclusion: We observed that the postoperative analgesia was definitely of a longer duration with the Bupivacaine group when compared to Ropivacaine group. So, it is concluded that 0.25% Bupivacaine is better in providing prolonged satisfactory postoperative analgesia as compared to 0.2% Ropivacaine when both are used as postoperative analgesia.