Enhancement ofLido caine Analgesic Effects in Epidural Analgesia by Metoclopramide in Rabbits

Epidural analgesia is a type of regional block, commonly used in human and veterinary practice toalleviate pain solelyor auxiliary to other methods of anesthesia. this method of analgesia is widely used in abdominal, perineal, tail and rear limb surgeries and procedures. it is also widely common to relieve pain after operations and in patients with chronic pain. many reports are availableabout analgesic propertiesof metoclopramide which is primarily used as antiemetic; meanwhile, lidocainewas used to induce analgesia in differentspecies of animal from long time ago. since narcotics have limitation in prescribing by physicians and clinicians, promoting other types of drugs with analgesic effectsseemworthwhile . the present prospective experiment was designed to study effects of metoclopramide on epidural analgesia induced by lidocaine in rabbits. twelve healthy new zealandwhite rabbitsweighing 3-3.5 kg were divided randomly into two groups. in group a, 2% lidocaine (1.5ml) and in group b the combination of 2% lidocaine ( 1.5 ml) and metoclopramide hel (0 .5 ml) was used to induce epidural analgesia. two more injectionswith 48 hours and one week intervals were performed in the same manner. the onset time of analgesia (ot), duration of flaccid paresis (dfp) and duration of analgesia (da) was determined in all treatments. repeated measure anova and banferroni test were used to compare mean and variances within and between groups. statistical analysis showed that there were no significantdifference in mean of ot and dfp between groups (p>0.05) . whereas mean of duration of analgesia was significantly higher in group b(39.1. 16.2 min) compared to group a (23 .6.5.5 min) (p=0.018). in condusion the addition of metoclopramideto lidocaine is effective in prolongation of epidural analgesia in rabbit.