peritonsillar ropivacaine infiltration in paediatric tonsillectomy: a randomised control trial

Introduction:various efforts have been made to reduce post tonsillectomy pain in children. the present study was undertaken to evaluate the efficacy and safety of ropivacaine in post-operative pain management in these children.materials and methods:this study is a randomized control study on 140 patients between 4 - 12 years of age, in whom tonsillectomy was performed in a tertiary care centre between january 2017 to november 2018 using standard dissection and snare surgical technique. postoperatively, patients were randomized into 2 groups of 70 patients each, receiving tonsillar fossa infiltration with 0.2% ropivacaine or 0.9% normal saline respectively. patients were assessed as per wong baker’s faces scoring system at 2 hours, 4 hours, 8 hours, 18 hours, 24 hours, and 48 hours postoperatively.  all the results were analyzed by spss software. chi- square test and mann-whitney test were used for assessment of level of significance, with p- value of less than 0.05 taken as significant.  results:both the groups were comparable with respect to age and sex. at 48 hours, in study group, maximum number of patients 35 (50%) had wong baker score 0, while in control group, maximum number of patients 52 (74.3%) had wong baker score 4 (p< 0.01). the difference in the mean deglutition time between both groups was significant (p< 0.01).conclusion:ropivacaine infiltration is a effective modality for post-tonsillectomy pain management in children, with minimal side-effects.